


Bespoken

by Tdinttwrt



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 14:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tdinttwrt/pseuds/Tdinttwrt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ninth Doctor attempts to educate Rose on the differences between Love's Baby Soft body spray and real perfume. Guest appearance by Alexander the Great. Light adult fun. And definitely some Greek Goddess cosplay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beachy Keen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An impromptu trip to the beach in Ancient Cyprus is embarked upon; the Doctor wears a pirate shirt and see-through linen trousers; a penetrating analysis is made.

**Chapter 1: Beachy Keen**

 

* * *

"So you gonna take me back in time to get some, or not?"

 

He had promised yesterday to help her find some Love's Baby Soft body spray. On a recent trip to Boots she had discovered they'd stopped making it. It occurred to her that locating discontinued perfume was the perfect use for a time machine. Yesterday, he had cheerfully agreed. Today, he was grumpily reneging.

 

"There's no need for tha'," he loudly declared. He squared his leather-clad shoulders.

 

Rose took note: the Doctor had just deployed the He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed voice. _Odd...didn't suppose he'd have a strong opinion on body spray, of all things. Just lookin' for an excuse to boss someone around_ , she thought. _Typical._

 

Rose figured she just might be in a bossy mood, too, then, and he could save it for a life and death situation. She sat up taller on the Tardis' battered jump seat. "Well I fancy it, so I think there is a need for it," she declared right back.

 

He snorted. "Shite."

 

"Beg your pardon?" He had offended her now.

 

"Diluted, synthetic, nothin' but floral top notes, no base, no stayin' power, full of toxic petro-chemical fixatives and solvents. Even the container is mostly plastic. Certain it smells awful."

 

"You sayin' I smell bad? 'Cause I've been wearin' it for months, 'fore I ran out!"

 

"No comment." He walked to the other side of the console and began pushing buttons.

 

Exasperated, Rose put her face in her hands. He really was in a mood, wasn't he. She took a few deep breaths then bounced to her feet, and strolled casually over to where he was, craning her neck to peer at what he might be up to now. She realized he was setting coordinates.

 

"Where we goin'?" she asked.

 

He turned around to face her. Grumpy Doctor had vanished, and now Happy Doctor was here instead. Honestly, the Jekyll and Hyde routine was starting to lose its appeal. Rather than motivating her to please him, today it was having the opposite effect.

 

"Cyprus," he replied. "Seein' to your ignorance on perfumes." He was grinning. He knew suggesting she was ignorant was going to get a rise out of her, and it did.

 

"Pokin' fun at me cheers you up or somethin'?"

 

"No, but educatin' you does." He was landing. "Come on, out you go." He opened the Tardis doors and motioned for her to exit.

 

Rose stepped out and took in her surroundings. Gently sloping terrain gradually became the rolling foothills of distant mountains. As far as she could see, the landscape was organized into that neat carpet of squares that means peaceful agricultural activity, on any planet. Green and well-watered, bathed in mild temperatures, the orchards of olives and grapes and fields of waving grain were evidently bountiful. No wars on, check. No menacing locals, check. No imminent natural disasters, check.

 

Turning around, she realized the land ended here, where the Tardis had parked. They were at the edge of a calm sea, standing on the warm sands of a...

 

"There's a beach! Look at the color of the water-it's green, more like blue-green, well it's green here, then it gets blue out there. Is this the Mediterranean? Mum used to send for holiday brochures. We're in Greece, yeah?"

 

"Island of Cyprus, southeast shore," he answered, growing pleased with himself at her happy reaction. "Not Greece, exactly."

 

"I don't know what you had in mind, Doctor, about perfume and all that, but I'm goin' back in, puttin' on a bathin' cozzie, 'n grab some sun tan lotion, a big floppy hat, maybe the Tardis has some beach chairs?, and I'm spendin' the day here." She planted her toes firmly in the soft tan sand, and looked up at him with that serious, determined almost-a-pout on her lips.

 

The Doctor sighed. He realized she had become "She-Who-Will-Not-Budge-Another-Inch" Rose. _She doesn't often take this attitude with me. She's quite accommodating, really. Mysteriously patient, actually. Puts up wi' me crap, long after anyone else would tell me to get stuffed. And I insulted her just now. No wonder she don't fancy comin' wi' me to th' ancient perfume factory, wasn't a very nice invitation, was it. I'm such bollocks at this..._

 

Rose could see the emotions on his face. _Oh, oh, here's Contrite Doctor,_ she thought. _That'll slide into Brooding Doctor if it's not nipped in the bud. Don't want him sad, even if he is an obnoxious git this morning._

 

"I do want to see what you have to show me, but can we put off the field trips to this evening, at least? Please? Enjoy the sunshine? Don't you have that book you've been picking at for a month? That would be really nice, you sittin' with me on the beach, readin', relaxin'."

 

"You mean I could finish Proceedin's of the 13th Annual Symposium of the Uthe 3 Scatterbud Propagation Society?" He had a twinkle back in his eye.

 

This time his happiness was not at her expense. No, it was just a short hop now to get to Kind Doctor, which in the most brilliant moments could flash over into Absolute Sweetheart Doctor, and that was the best of them all. "Yeah, that's the one," she smiled.

 

"I'm not swimmin'," he warned. "Or wearin' trunks."

 

Rose began to list various ideas for appropriate beach wear for men, that did not include heavy wool jumpers, denim, or leather jackets, as they headed back into the Tardis together.

 

 

* * *

 

The Doctor wouldn't do it. Just wouldn't put on trunks.

 

"You have an olympic lap pool. Figured you for a natural in the ocean. Can't you hold your breath for like half an hour or somethin'?"

 

"Don't care for it," he replied. He was wearing the linen trousers and lightweight cotton shirt he'd found close to the wardrobe door. No point in shoes. The shirt was bordering on a pirate look. No buttons, just split at the top with a draw-string around the neck. Long sleeves. Seemed he remembered something about winning a small trunk full of things from an actual pirate, once, on a dare, but he could not remember what had been in it.

 

"That's not an answer." Rose was stuffing a beach bag with a bottle of mineral water from some planet, her phone and wireless earbuds so she could listen to her music, towels, two different kinds of lotion-one for her face and one for the rest of her, a book of true space freighter ghost stories she'd found at a used bookshop while the Doctor was out hunting down Tardis parts last month, a tin of mints, a terry cloth cover-up in case it got chilly, sunglasses and a small soft-sided cooler with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

 

"We goin' to the beach or spear-headin' an invasion force?" he asked.

 

"Can you get the lounge chairs?"

 

As they walked out onto the beach, he couldn't believe he was schlepping behind her, carrying beach chairs. _Beach chairs, seriously._ But it was hard to complain when she was so obviously content and so obviously not wearing much. He had best not be staring so obviously, either, at her bum and her legs. The horizon became absorbing to him. Needed to be scanned. For pirates. Mediterranean was full of pirates.

 

"Sure nobody's gonna find us out here? Guessin' they've not invented folding beach chairs, yet, in this time period," Rose asked.

 

"Tardis perception filter. Extended it. We're hidden from pryin' eyes." As he sat the chairs up where Rose wanted to stop, he gestured to his and said, "I'm not gonna use it."

 

"Oh, quit bein' ridiculous and sit down," she chided. "Where's your book?"

 

He plopped into the low-slung reclining canvas contraption and stretched out his long legs, letting his feet splay. With a deep sigh, he crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. "Not gonna read."

 

Rose looked at him a moment, wondering what he _was_ going to do all day, but then decided she didn't really care, and began rummaging around in her bag, taking out all the things she had just spent fifteen minutes putting in.

 

With a "My Chemical Romance" retrospective bumping in her ears, Rose slathered on sun tan lotion. She considered bothering the Doctor to do her back, but she planned on being face up in the lounger mostly, and he finally seemed...serene.

 

She realized she had never seen him this way, before. He was resting. Not injured, sulking, or fixing something. Just having a lie-down. Soft sea breezes were blowing the sleeves of his shirt around, billowing it out away from his chest. _It's a puffy shirt, like a pirate's_ , she thought. Every time it blew out, she could see down the top of it, just a little, and she actually caught a glimpse of a nipple...

 

"Keep an eye out for pirates." He spoke into the air, without opening his eyes or making any sort of other movement. His tone was low.

 

The sudden comment startled her. First, because she had just been thinking the word "pirate", and second, because she was almost certain he knew she had been ogling his chest. She looked away quickly, then shook her head and lay back. She was sure he was joking about the pirates. She closed her eyes, and allowed the loud music to lull her.

 

He could hear the bass. Normally it would have bothered him, a companion listening to artificially amplified, repetitive pop out here in a natural setting. Another mood, another moment, and he might have felt the need to snark at her about her taste in music, try and get her to appreciate what he appreciated right now--the sounds of the water, sea birds, breezes. But he realized she had been right. It was good to relax next to her, as she enjoyed herself. Whatever form it took, pedestrian music, trashy literature, cheap cosmetics and all. If she was happy, he could be happy. He would put up with anything. Because she loved him.

 

His eyes flew open.

 

His turn to ogle. He turned his head and took a long look. She was all oily and fuzzy. She smelled like coconuts.

 

He had pretty young female companions before. The relationships were strictly chaste. Well, mostly chaste. They had loved and cared for him, as much as they could, in their own ways. Some were in it for the adventure, some were scientists, some fancied him, some did not, and some had nowhere else to go. He protected them, applauded them, admonished them, saved them when they blundered. Educated them.

 

What was Rose in it for? He had not realized until this moment, that it was simply him. Rose gave as good as she got. She protected him. She cheered him on, told him off. Saved his bloody arse the first time they met, she did. Plus taught him a thing or two. Like how not to be a complete tosser, not all the time.

 

He looked ahead in her timelines, and it was still there, in all its shining glory-the same mad nexus. The odd, inexplicable junction of many of him, one of her, clockwise death and loss becoming jumbled with simultaneous anticlockwise forever and joining. Inscrutable. There was almost no need for the screaming beacon of a warning to not look too long or too hard, which had been stamped across it.

 

Things with Rose were all going to go very right or terribly, tragically wrong, and he was along for the ride on this one. Out of control, again. There was a bit of panic rising in his gut. And there was a droplet of sweat running down the side of Rose's breast. It disappeared under the cup of her bathing costume. _Good gods_ , he swore silently.

 

He turned his gaze out to the horizon, stood up and strode into the ocean up to his navel. And then stood there. Staring at the empty sea, while its calm, warm waters soaked his skin.

 

Rose heard a faint splash and lazily opened one eye. A few dozen yards ahead was a very rare animal, indeed: Wading Doctor. Rarer than sighting a bongo in a dense forest. She had seen all about that on "Natural World". She did feel a bit like a leopardess, stalking him about the Tardis, lately. He was hard to pin down, that was for sure. Now there he was, all... _Wet. Down, girl,_ she thought. _Don't pounce, or you'll scare him back into the trees_.

 

What on Earth was he looking at, any how?

 

Men's voices. Oars. Two square sails. A large ship was rounding the edge of their little cove, at a speed that meant business, and its sailors certainly would have a smack-on view of the Doctor, standing in the waves. The perception filter did not extend out into the water.

 

He raced out of the sea, linen trousers and pirate shirt clinging to him, leaping through the water then plunging up the beach in a way that she would never have time to appreciate, because damn it all, he was saying,

 

"Rose, get in the Tardis, now." _Chairs, check, there goes Rose's bloody hat to the wind, let it go, any more anachronistic litter, no,_ "Step on it."

 

Safely on the other side of his ship's doors, he stopped and said, "They saw me, not you. Not this," he gestured around the console room, indicating the Tardis.

 

"Won't they come looking for you?"

 

"Not likely--one man in the ocean."

 

"There goes my beach day."

 

"Gonna pout 'n throw a wobbly?"

 

"Gonna keep drippin' on the Tardis?"

 

Now there was time to look. What she saw made her bite her upper lip, drawing it entirely into her mouth where she could scrape at it.

 

She started at his calves. _His calves are so big, hairy, but his thighs are so smooth, look at his muscles, hard as rocks--_

 

He was looking, too. His big Time Lord brain kicked into high gear: _Behavioural Sign: Biting of lips. Diagnosis: Biting bottom lip→ No→ Not currently experiencing habitual self-doubt/recurring anxiety due to lost love formulation formed around father's death. Biting top lip→ Yes→ Coping mechanism for sensations deemed socially unacceptable to express. Biting at side of lip→ No→ Biting at center of lip→ Yes→ Intense physical and emotional state indicated._

 

All on its own, her gaze raced upwards. _Drippy--_

 

He was more a gentleman, he was looking shoulders-up only, thank you very much. _Pupil dilation→ Yes→ 0 to +2.0 mm → Yes→ + 2.0 mm→ Yes→ Fixed→ No→ Neurological trauma not indicated. Concomitant increased rate of respiration→ Yes→ Perceptual selection of arousing stimuli likely._

 

 _Clingy--_ , she thought.

 

_Behavioural sign: Vasocongestion. Diagnosis: Face only→ No→ Subject not experiencing embarrassment due to perceived privacy violation. (Relief.) Torso involvement→ Yes→ Earlobe involvement→ Yes→ Human Sexual Response Cycle confirmed. Recent Orgasm→ No→ Concurrent or imminent orgasm→ No→ Current direct sexual stimulation→ No→ Excitement Phase confirmed. (Alarm.)_

 

 _See-through--_ , she noticed.

 

_Sign: Vasocongestion of breasts, swelling of nipples. Diagnosis: Breathing harder, wait that's me._

 

Rose's pupils got a whole lot more dilated when they landed squarely on the man's, _Hairy again, nearly blonde, how pretty, so curly, Oh my God, the jammy bastard, he's honkin' HUGE!_

 

_Sign: Strong activations detected in insular cortex, specifically right subinsular region involved in penile turgidity→ prefrontal cortex being bypassed→ Klaxon→ Eject, eject→_

 

They spoke simultaneously.

 

"You should-

"Gotta get-

"change into dry-

"out of these wet-

"right-

"o.k.-

"right-

"you said that already-"

"right…"

  
He scurried one way down a corridor, out of the control room, and she fled another. Two rare, beautiful animals, startled back into the depths of a fragrant, dense, dark, drippy, hot forest. Knowing the other was out there, now, waiting.


	2. You Think Alexander's Great, You Should Smell His...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tour of a perfume factory is taken; Rose is invited to wet Alexander well with her scallop shell; a question is put to the Doctor which makes him hide behind the Tardis' rotor.

**Chapter 2: You Think Alexander's Great, You Should Smell His...**

 

* * *

_Banging. Banging!_ Banging on the Tardis doors.

 

He was one leg in and one leg out of his wet trousers and the sudden redirection of his attention nearly caused the classic bathroom slip-and-fall of a crooked solicitor's dreams. _That would be the way to end it, wouldn't it_ , he thought. _Ancient besotted idiot brains 'imself on th' edge o' th' tub wi' 'is pants 'bout 'is ankles._ He gritted his teeth.

 

The trousers, the beach, the heavy breathing. He kept saying "Yes", and then "Yes" again, ridiculous amounts of "Yes" to this ephemeral being not a seventy-fourth point third his age. _Slidin' down a greased banister, watchin' where your goin' wi' your arse._ And the landing was coming up fast. _Never mind your bollocks, 'ere's th' finials--_

 

**Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump--**

 

"Damn tha' bangin'!" Pulling one's dungarees on whilst running is a maneuver which requires a good deal of hopping, but he managed it. He got his jumper on and settled its hem just as he finished crossing the control room. He threw open the Tardis doors with the proud, death-defying glower of The Lord of a Thousand Dying Stars, hurling it squarely at... empty air.

 

"Whoah!"

 

The Doctor snapped his head downwards toward the voice. A mop of curly, jet-black hair was peering around his legs, into the Tardis.

 

"What have you got in there!" it said.

 

The Doctor threw his feet out to either side of the door frame, to bar the way, and in the nick of time. For the boy, it was a boy, about 1.2 meters high, was intent on hurling himself into the ship.

 

“Tha’s me space ‘n time ship. An’ who might you be?” the Doctor replied to the curious boy.

 

“Doctor, what’s going on?” Rose emerged from the corridors.

 

Peering around the Doctor’s leg, the child saw Rose approach. He stumbled back, all agape, staring up for the first time at the Doctor’s face. Then he craned his head about, trying to see more of Rose past the Doctor’s protective stance.

 

His face lit with recognition and wonder. He declared, “You’re Hephaestus! You've the nose and ears and everything! And she’s Aphrodite! Wow!”

 

“Tha’s right, now run along,” the Doctor answered.

 

“Let me in, I want to see Aphrodite!” With an adroitness acquired from a young life spent ducking and weaving after escaped goats, he dove through the middle of the Doctor’s legs and ran to the Tardis’ console grating, stopping there to look around in circles with his mouth hanging open. Suddenly taken with trepidation, he asked, “There’s no cyclopes in here, are there?”

 

“Not up here, keep ‘em in th’ cellar." the Doctor replied.

 

“What’s your name?” Rose approached the child slowly, and crouched down so they were eye to eye.

 

"Alexander! Have you come for the festival? How 'come you've got on clothes? My sister is going to be a _hetaire_ in your temple!"

 

Rose wondered why the Tardis declined to translate the Greek word.

 

“Can I touch your yellow hair?” Alexander asked, lowering his voice and holding up his hands in prayerful attitude.

 

Rose giggled. “Yes.” She bent her head down.

 

“Wow.” He fingered her locks reverently.

 

“Ye’ve met Aphrodite, now go home, I’ve things to forge.” The Doctor strode over and picked the boy up by his waist, turning him sideways.

 

Alexander thrashed and accidentally gave the Doctor a mighty kick to his kidney, that almost made him drop the boy.

 

“Oi!” the Doctor yelled. He opened the doors and shoved Alexander out of them, closing them firmly behind him.

 

Rose could hear a muffled shout from Alexander: "Sorry I kicked you! I'll be back!"

 

“What was all that about! He thinks we’re Greek gods? Suppose we’d better go!” Rose said.

 

The Doctor shook his head. "Nah, no one'll believe him. Still want to take you on that field trip."

 

He went over to the console and mucked about with the controls and the viewscreen for a moment, then said, "Tardis' filter didn't work like it should have. Gonna move her up the hill."

 

Rose mused over their being discovered, while the Doctor repositioned the Tardis. An idea hit her. "If they believe in gods and goddesses, maybe a blue box isn't so far a stretch. Kinda' like children, seein' fairies in the garden?"

 

He turned to look at her. He was coming to expect, more and more lately, her unusual insightfulness."That's perceptive 'a you, Rose. Always did have more trouble in mythopoeic societies, keepin' under the radar. Speakin' a' which, would be wise to dress local. Fussy time period." He pointed down a corridor. "Wardrobe--Tardis'll 'ave the right togs."

 

"What's that, 'mythopoeic', is that myths plus poetry?"

 

"Yup. Cultures that define themselves with myths… People I knew once were big into tha'. Soothsayin', makin' up stories. Playin' at bein ' gods. Bad move, leavin' science behind, for that muck." He sounded bitter.

 

Rose wondered if he meant his extinct people, but made a quick decision not to ask. It was unusual for him to mention anything personal. She didn’t want to jinx it by pushing him on it.

 

“Here we are,” he announced. A narrow, burnished wood door, that looked for all the world like it would lead only to a small coat closet, swung open for them. Rose was never quite mentally prepared for the cavernous expanse of rows and racks and multiple floors, even, of costumes that were stored here.

 

Conveniently, the Tardis had moved the Hellenic section down and front. “She’s so thoughtful,” Rose purred, stroking the dowel of the nearest rack. The lights glowed a bit softer.

 

“Stop butterin’ ‘er up, it’ll go to her rotor,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Careful, or she’ll give you somethin’ where your buttons fall off halfway to town.”

 

“No buttons. Ties and pins.” He handed her what looked like two enormous white pleated linen table cloths, and threw two more for himself, though quite a bit shorter in length, over his own arm. “And I think,” he said, fishing around in a basket on a shelf, “for you, a golden girdle befittin’ ‘Aphrodite’.” He handed her a short belt of leather and hammered gold. “Hold on a mo’, I’ll show you how it’s done,” he said, pulling out a plain cloth belt for himself. He ducked behind one of the racks, for privacy, and came back out a moment later with his--

 

_Dress--he's wearin' a knee-length dress--and it's linen, again--maybe it can get wet too, sometime today, wouldn't that be lucky…_

 

\--garment securely on, and began showing her how it tied. “Yours’ll be longer, but y’ put the girdle round your waist and pull up the extra, let it hang over, see, like mine?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I think I can figure out how to dress myself,” she teased, and went around the back of the same concealing rack.

 

The Doctor’s superior hearing was picking up all sorts of sounds--slithery, then drapey, swishy, adjusty sounds. She emerged.

 

“White linen suits you,” he said, matter-of-factly, after making what she thought was a rather slow and bold rake up and down her body. “Need some earbobs, though.” He dug around in the basket again, and came up with a small leather drawstring pouch. “Hold out your hands.” He loosened the drawstring, then carefully spread open the pouch and shook out two earrings, about an inch and a half around, into her palms.

 

"They're gold babies, riding on the backs of birds. Oh, they have wings, too. They're cupids!"

 

“ _Erotes_. Part a’ Aprhrodite’s retinue. Those are doves.” He was pleased she liked them.

 

“They’re gorgeous. Are they real? I mean, really from back when we are?” She worked them carefully through her earlobes, and he moved in to check they were each securely fastened, moving her hair back from her neck on each side in turn. Did he know how touching her there did--things--to her? She shivered.

 

If he could tell the effect he was having on her, he was playing it cool. His voice was all business. “Not from Cyprus, but the time period’s right. Got ‘em off a bloke needed a lift off Sicily in a hurry. One o’ Archimedes’ slaves. Said he’d had enough o’ his master’s temper and manky animal bits hangin’ about in jars.”

 

“Think I need to brush up on my history,” Rose said, sincerely.

 

He met her eyes and grinned. “Row twelve, second shelf up, Cultural Anthropology, that’s your best bet.”

 

“I’ll get right on that.” He couldn’t tell if she meant it, or not. He hoped she did.

 

They donned some flimsy leather sandals that were barely there, just soles really, held on by straps wrapped around their shins and tied, and then headed for the Tardis’ front doors.

 

“Who’s this He-fustus you’re supposed to be?” Rose asked.

 

He began telling her the basic story of Hephaestus, homeliest of the Gods of Mount Olympus, God of the Forge, and how he made all the Gods' weapons and armor in his own palace with the help of the Cyclopes, and how he was given Aphrodite for a wife by Zeus, after she was created from sea-foam kicked up when Cronos cut off his father Uranus’ genitals with a scythe his mother gave him, and threw them into the Mediterranean, and how Aphrodite then floated, fully grown and starkers, to shore on a scallop shell, and how...

 

Rose just shook her head in amazement as they exited the Tardis, and made their way through a secluded grove of pomegranate trees, with a view through their bushy, fruit-laden branches to the settlement below, and the glittering sea beyond.

 

* * *

 

“OK, enough with the Mystery Tour, where we goin’?” Rose was hard-pressed to keep up with the Doctor, who as they reached a steep decline towards the town had begun practically galloping down, letting gravity take him bouncing along. It was making other things on him probably bounce, too, which made it harder to keep up, as that thought was quite distracting. Gave her a good motivation to try and get ahead of him though, _Where maybe I can turn about and have a look…_ She shook her head. _Cobwebby._

 

He pulled up, grinning and panting, bending over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath, before a long mud brick one story building. At one end were lined up several donkey-pulled carts, which the Doctor knew were waiting to take loads of alabaster amphorae filled with perfume out of the town, to the busy port at the main Cypriot city of Paphos, and then on to hundreds of retailers around the Mediterranean. “Smell that?” he asked Rose.

 

She inhaled deeply. "That's really nice. Someone's cooking supper?"

 

“What do you think?”

 

“Smells like bay leaves...rosemary...and pine trees. Dunno. Roast chicken?”

 

“It’s perfume! Ancient perfume. This ‘ere’s an ancient perfume factory.”

 

“Men’s cologne?” She was confused by the absence of flowery scents.

 

“No flowers yet, that comes later, with the invention of rose water. Now it’s all herbs, and no, it’s not just for men. Take that back, there was lavender. But mostly herbs. Fancy a tour?” He held out his hand.

 

She took it and let him lead her to the front entrance. _Does he wish I smelled like this? Does he want to smell like this? Kind of nice, actually, for a bloke._ She gave a mental shrug. _When in Ancient Greece…or the Tardis, smell as the Tardians do._ "Ancient Tardians," she said out loud, with a giggle.

 

He gave her a confused look. She did not have time to explain, as a very busy man with a very bushy head of very grey hair topping a very worried face was bustling toward them. “Ah! Here you are, finally! I hope you have the manifest?” he exclaimed to them.

 

“That’s them! That’s them!” Alexander appeared from inside the perfume factory, at a full run. He stopped a safe distance and began jumping up and down and pointing. “I was in their palace!”

 

Rose felt herself freeze in place, but the Doctor remained completely relaxed, a smile playing at his lips.

 

“Alexander, what are you shouting at?” the grey-haired man turned and snarled. “I am very busy, go back to Callistratus, why is he not watching you?”

 

“He won’t go anywhere, he just sits in his chair.”

 

“Go and tell him I said he must get up, and follow you, I don’t care how fast you run. That old slave needs the exercise.”

 

“But father, I was at their palace, it’s down by the water, they have cyclopes under the floor, and Aphrodite--”

 

“Enough! Go before I have Callistratus whip you!”

 

Alexander slunk back into the building.

 

“Sorry, we are in disarray today. My wife has taken our daughter and all the domestics, and half my female factory slaves, too, off to Paphos to set up our villa for the festival. My daughter is being accepted as a priestess at the Temple of Aphrodite! We are very honored, of course, but the timing couldn’t be more inconvenient. I am at a total standstill until I get your amphorae unloaded--we’ve been out of coriander for a month! Now, let us go look over the manifest. Oh, and how many men have you brought to help?”

 

“No manifest, mate, we’re here for the tour,” the Doctor said.

 

“Tour? What tour?”

 

"We've come to see about orderin' for the Hera Games next summer. This here's Antheia, she's one of the unmarried girls on the plannin' committee. I'm 'er uncle. Ye can call me Hippocrates."

 

"Hera Games?" the man questioned.

 

The Doctor pretended to be put out. "It's the new thing, you know, at the Olympics in Athens. Men have the Zeus games, women the Hera. Look, I thought this had all been arranged. Antheia here wants a tour and some samples."

 

"Women? At the Olympiad? They'd be thrown off a cliff!"

 

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Not _married_ women, _maidens_."

 

"Oh, well, that makes more sense."

 

"Is he saying women can't play sports?" Rose asked the Doctor, her spine stiffening.

 

"Now, now, Antheia, no one is questioning your right to have a good foot race," he soothed.

 

"Hope not, you seen me do enough runnin'!" she exclaimed.

 

"I haven't the time to take you 'round, but Alexander and my personal man Callistratus can. Let me call for them." The factory owner beckoned over one of his busy slaves and spoke to him briefly, gesturing into the building. He turned back to the Doctor and Rose and said, "Excuse me, but I must go down to the docks and see if anyone knows where my damned coriander is!" Then he hurried away.

 

Alexander came back out, followed by an elderly man. The wizened gentleman introduced himself. “I am Callistratus, the manager here, and this is my charge for the week, whilst his mother is away--little Alexander the Great Pain in My Ass.”

 

This seemed to embolden the boy, rather than chastise him. “Callistratus is the manager, but I am to be the owner one day! And I will own, you, too, Callistratus! Come, I will show you, you will see, this is the best perfume in the whole world. You will go back up to Olympus and tell Hera and she will buy it all and we shall be rich!”

 

“Alexander tells me you are Hephaestus and Aphrodite, and you have a blue chariot with a palace inside of it, just down the hill,” Callistratus said, then gave them a wink.

 

Alexander drew himself up and said, sincerely, “You do not have to hide yourselves, Callistratus will tell no one, will you, Callistratus? He does what I say, and may I be thrown into the pit of Tartarus if I reveal your secret identities! I am your slave, Aphrodite. Just ask, and I will fly to your side at the bending of your little finger.” He batted his lush, curly eyelashes up at Rose.

 

"Oi, quit makin' eyes at me woman," the Doctor warned, glowering down at the boy. "Or I'll fix you like I did Ares!"

 

Rose smiled. “Go on, you little charmer, show us this perfume of yours.”

 

They entered the low, long building, where at the front a group of men were pulverizing many types of fragrant herbs in huge mortars. Women came and gathered up the crushed herbs and took them to the next station, where some kinds were placed in vats of water, Callistratus explained, and others into ewers of olive oil, to soak for several days.

 

At the back of the factory, a row of copper stills were steaming, distilling the essences of the herbs. Callistratus did a fine job of explaining the technique, and by the time the party had come around full circle back to the front of the factory, Rose had in hand three samples of scents deemed appropriate for unmarried female athletes, and a sound understanding of how to make homemade perfume.

 

“My Lady," Alexander said to Rose, "now you will smell better than all the other Goddesses! Tell Hera she must not be jealous!"

 

"OK Alexander, I will," Rose laughed.

 

As the Doctor and Rose began to take their leave, Alexander remembered something he wanted to ask. Adopting a prayerful, supplicating pose, he said to Rose, "O Gloriously Beautiful Aphrodite, please, I beseech you. Wilst thou douse me with water at the docks tomorrow? It is the start of your festival! Say you will be there, and that you personally will wet me well with your scallop shell!”

 

“You want me to throw water on you?” Rose began, questioningly.

 

“Alexander,” Callistratus said sternly, “it is not your place to remind 'Aphrodite' of the sea she came from, she is perfectly well aware of it, and I am sure she needs to get on to Paphos in her car, to her temple, not run around on a provincial beach with little boys.”

 

“Quite right, on to Paphos and then Mount Olympus,” the Doctor declared. “Thank you, Callistratus, this is a fine place you’ve here, it does you credit. And Alexander, try not to pester any more Gods this week, eh? Never know when they’ll 've 'ad enough a’ you--might start chuckin’ me lightnin’ bolts.”

 

"Good bye," Callistratus waved, then turned to find Alexander had already disappeared somewhere. The gentleman hobbled, muttering, back into the factory.

 

Back in the Tardis, Rose planted herself against the console, arms crossed. She was most definitely, deliberately in the Doctor’s way, as he upped the range and scope of the ship’s perception filter.

 

"Extra-strength," he muttered to himself, then to Rose, "D'you 'ave to lean there?"

 

"You called me 'your woman'." She smirked. "Hephaestus and Aphrodite, remember? Then you said I was your niece. Which is it?"

 

He stopped and froze, gaping at her. It took 2.82 milliseconds for his brain to come back online.

 

"Rose, you know we 'ave t' keep undercover, if you want to mix in. But I hope we're done wi' this 'god 'n goddess' foolishness."

 

"Foolishness? I kind of fancy bein' a goddess! And you as my uncle? 'magine you're bossy enough as me 'mate'." Rose gave him a wink. She was well-aware of the double meaning of the word "mate", in that sentence.

 

Something on the opposite side of the console needed the Doctor’s immediate attention. He flew over to investigate, the time ship’s rotor conveniently hiding him completely from Rose’s view.

  
“You can’t hide from Aphrodite,” she announced, leaving her perch on the console. “She sees all,” she sing-songed, sashaying from the console room to go change out of her costume. Leaving the Doctor with bright red ears.


	3. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor makes a decision; Alexander hitches a ride; Rose learns more than she wanted to know about the role of women in Ancient Cyprus; a symposium is held; a potentially sticky situation develops for tomorrow's Aphrodite Festival.

**Chapter 3: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Temple**

 

* * *

Tea-time on the Tardis was a casual affair. It was hard to get the Doctor to sit down long enough to have it. He was more likely to grab his mug and a couple of biscuits and charge off somewhere, leaving Rose alone at the kitchen table.

 

This evening, when Rose wandered in to fix it, he was already seated, reading some sort of technical manual in Gallifreyan.

 

“What’s that, then?” she asked.

 

“Specs,” he replied.

 

“Yeah, I guessed that, on what?” She put the kettle on the induction plate and fished out mugs and biscuits. “Want a sandwich?”

 

“Sure, thanks,” the Doctor replied, then added, “cucumbers and mayonnaise.”

 

“There’s a manual for cucumbers and mayonnaise?” Rose teased.

 

He just grunted.

 

She left him in peace and in short order had a plate of sandwiches out, cut in fourths, crusts off, thank you very much, cucumbers cut into the finest transparent slivers, along with the usual digestives.

 

He put his reading up and contentedly ate, drinking big slurps of tea in between.

 

“So can we go see this big festival coming up?”

 

“You mean the Aphrodite one? At Paphos?”

 

“Yeah, think it would be nice. Further my education,” she added, smiling.

 

“Ye should go to the library like I said, and read up. Row 12--”

 

“Second shelf,” she echoed him, “I remember. I will. I promise, I’ll spend the rest of the evening in the library.”

 

He cleaned up their tea things from the table, then carefully washed up and put them away.

 

“Sorry we’ll miss all the scallop shell fun down at the beach tomorrow. Don’t suppose we could stop there first?”

 

He turned and gave her a pointed stare, and said, “Think Aphrodite's been evoked enough this trip. Might need t’ give 'er a rest, eh?” He waited to see her response.

 

She tried very hard to not look disappointed. He was slamming the door shut on the flirting, that was obvious. She squared her shoulders, and put on a brave air of nonchalance. With a tinkling, hopefully not too-forced-to-be-believable laugh, she said, “Yeah.” The next sentence jumped out of her mouth with no warning:

 

“And more wet, white linen--that would be downright dangerous. Wouldn’t it, Doctor?” She still had her eyes locked with his.

 

Another pause, then a fast blink, and he was out of the kitchen, and she was left to contemplate an evening alone in the Tardis’ library.

 

* * *

 

Big Book of Greeks, the title read. It was, indeed, a large and heavy tome. Rose pulled it from the shelf with some difficulty, and had to balance its heft on the edge of the bookcase as she opened to a random page.

 

She was greeted with a glossy, color photo plate of a muscular, young man. Quite naked, oiled up and glistening for his photo shoot, he was giving the camera a smoldering pout. On the opposite page, a brief biography was given for him. _“Adelfo enjoys racing his chariot and brewing beer,”_ it began.

 

A quick flip through the rest of the book revealed more of the same. Rose, eyes wide, put it back on the shelf. “Not what I had in mind,” she murmured, “but thanks, all the same.” What was a book like that doing in the Doctor’s library? Certainly, he had not meant to send her to look at _this_? She walked to the end of the aisle and checked the location--yes, it was Row 12, and yes, that had been off the second shelf.

 

She went back and looked through the titles surrounding the odd volume. _Ah, here’s one looks more appropriate,_ she thought. She pulled it down. This one was titled  The Sensitive Traveler’s Guide to Interpersonal Mores. _This sounds more like a school book._

 

She flipped to the Index and ran her finger down the entries. _Flane, Florana, Freytus, Frontios, Galaxis, Gallifrey, Greece--_ “Gallifrey!” Rose exclaimed. That was the Doctor’s doomed planet. Beyond the time he had mentioned its name, and told her that it had been destroyed at the end of a lost war, she knew nothing about his world or his people.

 

She felt a little guilty, like she was snooping, but he had sent her here. _He must know what's in his own collection, with that big brain a' his, right?_ She turned to the entry on Gallifrey, and began reading.

 

”Sexual activity on Gallifrey in modern times has become non-existent, reproduction being carried on asexually through genetic manipulation. Marriage is strictly controlled, being an arranged institution designed to preserve hereditary lines. While seemingly capable of recreational sex, there is no evidence of any sex drive whatsoever in Gallifreyans, the absence especially marked among females. Since it is impossible to get them to address the matter directly to outsiders (they declined to submit any information to the editors of this guide), and since strict laws are in effect banning sexual reproduction with other species, we do not recommend attempting to bed a Gallifreyan to any but the most experienced traveler. Famously narrow-minded and joyless, even if you could get one between your sheets, they would likely be not much fun. Give this planet a pass.”

  


That was definitely enough library time. Rose could not concentrate well enough now to read anything about Ancient Greece or Cyprus. She was far too disappointed.

 

She slunk off to her suite for a tepid shower and a dispirited night’s sleep, in her most modest baggy flannel pajamas. Hopes for the Doctor’s nipples, honking hugeness under wet, white linen, previous hints at possible _dancing_ and all their delicious flirtations in general, all these were now dashed from their once-heady heights, to the sad, sharp rocks below.

 

* * *

 

On another corridor, in a partially darkened room set to as cold a temperature as its hot and bothered occupant could stand, another person with high hopes was trying to talk them down off their cliff. But these particular inclinations seemed determined not to dash their brains out, but rather, expand and grow by the day. By the minute. _Rassilon’s pants,_ Rose in that bathing costume, and then a goddess costume. He remembered some crass joke Jack had kept quoting, from Earth, that referenced some advert for pills for one’s penis. Something about a hotline for erections lasting more than four hours. He realized he qualified.

 

He remembered her comment about his swimming pool, and thought several kilometers worth of endurance laps a good idea right now. Perhaps he could exhaust himself. As he walked to the pool, and then plunged in to start the first length, his thoughts became clearer.

 

His reticence was not from a sense of impropriety. He was no prig. He was not ashamed, in the least. He had given himself permission to let his Gallifreyan “freak flag fly,” as it were, many centuries ago. He felt none of the Time Lord-mandated guilt he was supposed to feel, for being sexually attracted to the girl. He was certainly not sorry she was so obviously in love with him, though that would have been unfortunate for her if he did not love her back.

 

No, he was frightened. Terrified. Because he did love her back. So completely, so hopelessly, so uncontrolledly, that there was, racing toward them, a time when he would have to declare himself and ask her to be his bond-mate, or go completely mad from the physiological stress. This was not going to be a roll in some alien hay. Not with Rose. This was for keeps or he did not want it at all. It boggled his mind, how this had happened to him. Such a thing had been so far off his radar, especially coming on the heels of the Time War, that a year ago, it would have been inconceivable!

 

He pounded the water over and over again. Several hours later, when he emerged, his body was tired, but his resolve was standing at the edge of a new dawn. He would take her to this silly festival, and then he would find some quiet and out of the way corner of the universe, where the various creatures who might try blasting them, eating their souls, etc., etc. (how tiresome it was all becoming, these vexsome monsters, of late) would never tread, and park the Tardis in a nice grove, with a waterfall--that would be an excellent feature--and over a picnic ask her to marry him, and then, after she said “Yes,” there would be the bonding and the retiring, permanently, of any need for that hotline’s number.

 

He knew just the spot.

 

* * *

 

Banging on the Tardis doors, again! “Bloody hell,” the Doctor shouted, and threw the doors open to let in who else, but Alexander.

 

The boy was drenched, and covered in sand up to his knees, which he began tracking all over the grating.

 

"Thought I told you to leave us be, we're undercover," the Doctor growled. "How'd you find us, anyhow?"

 

Rose, hearing the muffled conversation, and recognizing the young voice right away, hurried to the control room before the Doctor made good on his promise to electrocute the child.

 

“Alexander, you’re a mess,” she scolded, when she saw him all wet and sandy.

 

His face lit up when he saw her, then took on a pout. “You didn’t come to wet me!” He studied Rose’s and the Doctor’s legs, and asked, “Why do you have that funny armour on your legs?” Alexander was pointing to the Doctor’s and Rose’s blue jeans.

 

“Keep me bedroom ice cold. Me legs turn blue in the night,” the Doctor said.

 

“Doctor, I mean, Hephaestus, don’t tease little Alexander,” Rose admonished.

 

“Yes, dear,” the Doctor softly replied, bowing his head to her a little, and Rose had to do a double-take. Which personality was this, now? She would have to be on watch today--he was evidently in some strange emotional state.

 

“I want to ride with you!” Alexander continued. “I want you to stay with us, in our villa in Paphos! Father will join us tomorrow, but Mother is already there. Can you imagine what people will say, when they know Hephaestus and Aphrodite are guests in my house?”

 

“Where’s Callistratus?” asked Rose.

 

“I pointed him toward Paphos and told him to start walking. But he only cursed me and went the other way.”

 

Rose laughed. “Come on, Alexander, I was just going to make breakfast. While the Doctor, I mean, Hephaestus, flies us to the festival, you can tell me all about your family and your villa, over some McVitie’s toasting waffles.” The boy obediently trotted away after her, to the kitchen, where no doubt he would see many more of the wonders contained atop Mount Olympus.

 

* * *

 

Paphos was bustling with pre-festival preparations. Everyone was rushing to get to the stores before they closed early at sunset, forgoing their usual nap times after lunch. There would plenty of drinking and feasting tomorrow! The city was abuzz with anticipation.

 

Re-dressed in their Greek getups, Rose and the Doctor followed Alexander to an elaborate villa that took up an entire city block, not far from the mount where stood the great Cypriot temple of Aphrodite. They were welcomed by a bemused slave at the front door, then by Alexander’s high-strung mother, Eugeneia, whose gold bangles swung about, clinking, as she gesticulated. She declared she had no idea why Alexander was here now, unchaperoned, in Paphos by himself, and could only imagine how he became covered in sand, and how his tunic had lost all its pleats, but that his unexpected guests were of course welcome, to stay?, here?, in my house?, and should consider her villa their villa, and they would not be wanting something to eat, would they?

 

After Alexander was sent away to be bathed and dressed properly, Eugeneia invited the Doctor and Rose into the central courtyard where they were seated and offered water. Some polite quizzing soon got out of them their identities as Uncle and Niece, that the Niece was an unmarried maiden on the Hera Games committee from Athens, and that an absolute fortune in increased business for their family factory rested on their favor.

 

“Don’t think for a moment I will have you sleep on the first floor, no, Electra, Charis!” she called out to the house, two thin women appearing immediately, “Put our beloved guests upstairs, please, with the family. Antheia, you shall sleep with our dear daughter Iona in the women’s quarters. She is receiving the highest honors at the temple tomorrow, I know you will be best friends! Hippocrates, sir, please allow me to offer you the front-most chamber, it was our elder son’s, before he set sail with the Cypriot navy. He’s almost a trireme commander after just two years’ time! You may come and go as you please, from there, I will get one of the slaves assigned to you. I believe there is a symposium next villa over tonight, sponsored by my husband’s dear friend and Archon of Paphos, Parmenion the Lesser. He is a direct descendant of one of Alexander the Great’s generals, you know. Now, now,” she suddenly hollered up to the top floor, “Charis, come back down here immediately, what are you thinking? Fix some lunch for our distinguished guests! Adena, are you doing as I asked?” Then to the Doctor and Rose she said, “Excuse me, I am needed everywhere at once.” She headed after her slaves, jewelry clattering, fussing and barking orders until she was out of earshot.

 

"A symposium! Tha's brill'," the Doctor said, truly excited at the prospect.

 

"What will we do there?" Rose asked.

 

"Oh, well, uh-" he was interested in the tile mosaic under their feet, now.

 

“Doctor, what, what is it?”

 

“You, uh, aren’t invited.” Still contemplating the floor.

 

“What?” Her voice warned of the approach of that most dreaded of beasts, Affronted Rose.

 

“Blokes only. No women. Sorry?” He got up the nerve to look directly at her, and began rapidly backpedaling, “Really, it's no fun, hairy men drinkin' too much wine, upchuckin', why they even have special bowls for the slaves to catch the vomit. Then if they start bringin' out the slave boys, things can get positively pornographic, I promise you, Rose, you don’t want to be there. No place for a lady.”

 

“Then what exactly are you all chuffed about, if it's such a bad scene?” Rose couldn’t help but think back to her find in the library. _Big Book of Greeks... He couldn’t be… could he? There was that flirting with Jack, wasn’t there. Now he wants to ditch me to spend the night with a bunch of men, and aren't the ancient Greeks famous for..._

 

“The stories, of course!” the Doctor quickly replied. “And the poetry. Major showcase for the arts, these upper class symposia.”

 

“Hmph,” was all Rose had to say. “What am I supposed to do all evening?”

 

A voice came from behind her. “Why, I hope you will keep me company!” A girl just a year or two younger than Rose came around before them. “Hello, I am Iona. I hear you will be bunking with me tonight! Shame I won’t get to spend more time with you, but I am going to be at the temple for, I hope, a few days, at least, during the festival. So nice to finally get out of the house!”

 

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Antheia, and this is my Uncle Hippocrates. Thank you for letting us invade your home.”

 

“Nonsense, no invasion required, you are welcome. As to what to do all evening, I have a great deal of embroidery to finish up for my veil. Mother says it’s fine the way it is, but I want it to be perfect.” Iona gave the Doctor a shy glance, and moved away from him, over to Rose’s far ear, and whispered, “It’s the veil for my induction as a _hetaire_.” She giggled and blushed, looking down. “But now you’re here, you can help me with it, let me know your opinion. I believe I have a blank one you can have, to embroider yourself, if you like. Won’t that be fun!”

 

“Yeah, sounds like a thrill,” Rose said, and shot a quick dagger of a look at the Doctor, who merely shrugged.

 

After a delicious lunch of cold roasted goat, rice salad with currants, stuffed grape leaves and paste in a creamy, cinnamon-flavored bechamel sauce, along with well-watered wine (in deference to the young ladies), the Doctor and Rose were given a tour of their respective quarters and invited to take a nap. They both declined, and meeting up again in the courtyard, the Doctor came up with some excuse to take Rose out into the town for a while. They were warned to be back by sunset, which the Doctor was well aware was the unofficial curfew for any lady of station to be out and about in the city streets.

 

* * *

 

The city was beautiful. Its harbor was a brilliant blue, _The color of the sapphire in Princess Diana’s ring,_ thought Rose. They opted for a long stroll through the gentle Mediterranean surf along its beach, the Doctor even taking off his sandals. When they had gone as far as time allowed, they re-donned their footwear and walked back via the city’s main market street.

 

Most of the shops had already closed for the day, but a table of jewelry caught Rose’s attention. Made from the Cypriot copper that had put the island on the map of the ancient world, it was not flashy, or expensive, but Rose thought it looked so authentic, so ancient. She fingered the cuffs meant to adorn one’s upper arm.

 

“If you see somethin’ you fancy, I have a coin or two,” the Doctor quietly said.

 

“Where you hidin’ coins in that get-up?” Rose asked.

 

Grinning, the Doctor reached into a pocket in his chiton and pulled out two small, silver coins.

 

“You have pockets? I could use a pocket in this thing!”

 

“Men have pockets, Rose, but women do not,” he explained, as if that was the most normal thing in the universe.

 

“Men are gonna have somethin’ else around here soon,” Rose grumbled, “like a good slap, if they’re not careful.”

 

“And here I was, offerin’ to buy you a bauble!”

 

“Yes, and I’ll have that one, please,” Rose said to the vendor, pointing the most elaborate, and thus probably the most expensive, piece on the table.

 

The Doctor paid up, and with all good humor, stretched and fixed the cuff around her upper arm.

 

“S’lovely, thank you,” she said, and gave him a sincerely warm smile. “Reminds me of the play I was in once, in school. I was ‘Dancin’ Girl Number Two.’ I was meant to fan Cleopatra. I remember I was jealous a’ her. She only got it ‘cause her boobs were already in.”

 

The Doctor let her chatter as he walked her back to their guest quarters, where Rose was quickly whisked away to the upstairs women’s rooms in the inner, most inaccessible, part of the home.

 

Even though he knew she would be like a bird in a gilded cage, he was glad there was somewhere safe for her to be, where she could still experience the local culture. Tonight of all nights, the eve of the Festival of the Goddess of Sex, was indeed no time for a woman to be out and about in Paphos. He called for the slave assigned to look after him to come lead him to the symposium. He arrived at the villa, even grander than his host's, and knocked upon its outer door with relish.

 

* * *

 

In the women’s quarters of the well-appointed villa, Rose and Iona were pampered and waited on, wanted for nothing and found themselves profoundly bored. Fibre Arts, it turned out, were not Rose's forte, though she enjoyed trying on Iona's veil and modeling it about the room. It was like a bridal veil, but quite opaque. "No one is to see your face until the induction ceremony inside the temple. That is when you become Aphrodite, in human form, and then your worshippers may gaze upon you, and judge your beauty."

 

"Oh, so it's a beauty contest. Is there a talent portion? Do you have to perform, like a dance or a song?"

 

Iona blushed and giggled. "No, just, your uh, worshippers, they present you with money and then you go into the inner chambers..."

 

Rose waited but when Iona did not finish the sentence, she guessed, "Then you say prayers or something?"

 

Iona giggled into her hands. "Yes, you 'say your prayers'. That's a good one."

 

Iona's mirth subsided, and the young women were left to sit, quietly, out of conversation. Rose contemplated if it might be more fun to lie down and try to go to sleep early, when the slave woman, Charis, came in hurriedly and knelt to whisper into Iona's ear.

 

"Here?" exclaimed the girl, sitting bolt upright on her chaise. Charis nodded, and Iona said "Take me to him," then hurried from the room.

 

 _Wonder what all that's about,_ thought Rose.

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile at Parmenion the Lesser's posh symposium, the Doctor was already on his fourth _krater_ of wine. He was perfectly sober but a few of the guests reclining on couches nearby were showing the effect, though the drink was cut with water, to help extend the party as long as possible into the night.

 

The man next to him, an enourmously hairy fellow in a too-short tunic, had taken umbrage with an offhand comment the Doctor made concerning the optimal shape of oars. The Doctor had suggested the style currently in use might be improved upon, but his neighbor heartily disagreed. "My father captained a trireme at the siege of Tyre just fine with the same oars you say are no good. Tell me how you suppose you could do better than the mighty Cypriot fleet and how you could know better than Alexander the Great!"

 

Another guest overheard and came to the Doctor's defense. "Adonis, neither you nor your father know a thing about constructing oars--how do you know the design might not be reworked, to make them perhaps cut faster and smoother through the sea?"

 

"Exactly, Stelios," the Doctor said. "It's all about fluid dynamics..." A long explanation ensued that left his fellows in awe on the one hand and with a scowl that was threatening to become permanent on the other.

 

If they had been a few more kraters into the wine, it might have come to blows, until Stelios reminded Adonis that his beloved oars had been invented by the Phoenicians, the long-hated foreign occupiers of Cyprus, only recently driven out. Adonis grudgingly gave in, allowing that anyone besides a Phoenician must, indeed, be able to design a better oar blade, especially if the task were given to a local.

 

After they had all come to agreement, and flung the dregs of krater number five, the first entertainment of the evening was announced: an exhibition of "ancient liturgical dances of the Minoans". Which amounted to girls in skimpy see-through outfits "fleeing" from a growling, naked, boy wearing a bull's head, the girls bobbing and weaving to get a chance to cruelly pull upon his tied-on tail, until, subdued by them, he kneeled to allow their graceful leaping back and forth across his back.

 

This was followed by another hour of drinking and conversation, until it was suggested the guests take turns performing poems in honor of Aphrodite. The Doctor, as an out of town guest, was pressed upon to go first, and hopefully introduce something new and exciting from Athens. A work by Lord Byron sprung to mind. He was fairly certain no one was currently sober enough to write it down. Or if someone did, bets were on that any copies would be used for kindling by invading barbarians, just a few hundred years from now. Clearing his throat, he stood and recited:

 

_She walks in beauty, like the night_

_Of cloudless climes and starry skies;_

_And all that's best of dark and bright_

_Meet in her aspect and her eyes:_

_Thus mellowed to that tender light_

_Which heaven to gaudy day denies._

_One shade the more, one ray the less,_

_Had half impaired the nameless grace_

_Which waves in every shining tress,_

_Or softly lightens o'er her face;_

_Where thoughts serenely sweet express_

_How pure, how dear their dwelling place._

 

_And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,_

_So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,_

_The smiles that win, the tints that glow,_

_But tell of days in goodness spent,_

_A mind at peace with all below,_

_A heart whose love is innocent!_

 

"Recited with such feeling!" cried Stelios, "I believe our guest is a man in love!" When the Doctor bowed his head in admittance, more wine was called for.

 

The Doctor was urged to down his in one long gulp, as the others clapped and cheered him on. Finishing it with a flourish, he flung his dregs and announced, "Tomorrow I will become engaged!" That led to more wine, more gulping and cheering, and the Doctor began to notice his body was metabolizing alcohol more slowly than normal. He felt positively giddy. It was probably from the heightened excitement he felt, his neurochemicals and hormones keeping him from operating at peak efficiency. He knew he should care, but he did not, not a jot. "Fan-fuckin’-tastic!" he cried, drinking deeply yet again, his wine splashing over the rim as he held it aloft in a toast.

 

Thinking it some fashionable Athenian turn of phrase, the party aped him. "Fan-fuckin’-tastic!" they hurrahed, and more wine rained down upon them.

 

* * *

 

Iona was gone quite a while, but when she returned, she was in such an excited state that Rose might have thought she brought news of a tragedy, except that the girl was grinning from ear to ear. Slaves were starting to move about, with hushed voices, taking care to soften their footsteps. They were, Rose realized, in the process of hurriedly packing a series of woven baskets with all of Iona's clothing and jewelry and toiletries.

 

Iona came to Rose and took up both her hands, saying, "I know we just met, but if you love that Goddess we have gathered to honor, I beg of you to do this is her name--" She waited, looking for a sign that Rose would not refuse her out of hand.

 

"Go on," Rose encouraged her. "Looks to me like you're running away from home?"

 

"I am! That was the son of the Commander of the Navy in the street just now! I have agreed to marry him! We are eloping! But please, this is where you come in. My mother has said I am to marry this local bore of an olive oil salesman, and spend the rest of my life in that backwards hamlet of ours. But how I long for city life. And Xerxes will take me to Athens, and Alexandria, and who knows where else! Some day I may ride upon the back of a pachyderm, in the farthest reaches of the East! I must get away and get the deed done with, before my mother can stop it. Will you help me? I beg you!"

 

"Are you in love then?" Rose asked.

 

Iona looked puzzled. "Well of course not, I just met him this week, but I have known of him for some time. He will do! I just wish he had waited until after the festival, but I suspect the thought of my being worshipped tomorrow is what drove him to action."

 

"Alright, I'm game. What do I do?" Rose was glad for some excitement, finally, and felt up for anything, even if it was not in the name of true love. Getting out of the women's quarters of an upper-class Cypriot house was a noble aspiration all on its own.

 

"We shall swap clothing, and you shall be me, long enough for me to make my escape. We are so alike in shape and size, under my veil no one will know it is you, as long as you do not speak. Just pretend to be nervous, and short of tongue. Nodding will do fine. When mother calls for me, Alexander has agreed to create a diversion, and then you shall be carried to the temple in my place! "

 

"What do I do when I get there?" Rose asked.

 

"Just look pretty. You are the embodiment of Aphrodite, so everyone is there to adore you, bathe you, massage you, the Oracle will tell your fortune, you’ll love it. And then, well, you know, just follow along and do as you're told. Take the money you’re offered, and, you know, yadda, yadda, yadda. Like I said, wish I had the chance to do it as planned, would have been great--but it would have been over in a couple of days. Now I shall never have to return home, and finally be out from under my mother's thumb! I will have a villa of my own, slaves and children of my own--I will be the boss! Oh, how I am looking forward to a long reign of absolute tyranny." Iona could not stop smiling.

 

Rose nodded in agreement to it all, glumly thinking, " _Will be nice to feel adored, for a change, instead of alternately lead on then put off by the Doctor. Bet he won't even notice I'm missin'._

 

* * *

 

Parmenion the Lesser was ten kraters to the wind, and the poem he chose to present did not concern the tender feelings of the heart. Several other female body parts, besides the heart, featured prominently. His recitation had all the guests crying with mirth, except for the Doctor, who was becoming increasingly disgusted.

 

The crowd’s reaction spurred the host on to even lower heights, and Parmenion began to compose a new work about the morrow’s festival. It seemed he had been promised first pick of the virgin _hetaire_ , the sacred prostitutes who would be lined up for “worship”, and he freestyled several lines of verse about what jolly fun he and his genitalia would have at Aphrodite’s Temple.

 

This shining piece of poetry elicited the first vomiting of the evening, which garnered clapping all around. More wine was deemed to be the best response. The men seemed to have forgotten all about the finer arts they were meant to be promoting at a proper drinking party. When a pack of stark naked male gymnasts came out to do handsprings and other feats, and the Doctor was offered a “smooth boy”, he felt he had enough of this night’s symposium, and begged off. He had, after all, a beautiful, exciting day ahead of him tomorrow.

 

As the slave who had accompanied him led him back home, he mulled over his outrageous luck at having Rose given to him, to be his mate. It was the only benevolent thing the universe had done for him since... He could not remember how long it had been since anything really good had happened to him. He could barely keep himself from running to wake her up just to look at her face. But he had promised her she would see some of the festival, so he went to his assigned room, and made himself lie down to rest. The wine may not have fully intoxicated him, but he found himself affected to the point where sleep took him swiftly and easily into her arms-- a rare respite for the weary.

 

* * *

  
He would not awaken for several hours, his dreaming so deep he never heard the commotion Alexander created shortly after dawn, knocking his mother’s breakfast tray over the courtyard railing where it smashed below, or the slaves running about and shouting, or the cries of “Farewell!” as Rose, dressed as Iona, was carried away to her appointments in a gaily decorated chariot, garlanded with wild roses and branches of myrrh and myrtle.


	4. Though Now He Flees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aphrodite's Oracle has some fantastic news; the Doctor teams up with an errant bride-groom; Rose realizes she's won the Thickety McThick-Thick award.

**Chapter 4: Though Now He Flees**

 

* * *

Mid-morning was approaching, marked by the striking of a gong by an ingenious new water-clock from Athens, proudly on display just outside the men’s downstairs sitting rooms. Despite its sounding, the Doctor might have slept on through half the afternoon, but for the tailings of last night’s wine rolling about his bladder. He politely declined his attending slave’s offer to hold the chamber pot for him, but could not stop the young man from hovering expectantly for him to finish, so he could take it outside, holding it up like it was a champion’s prize. _Alexander probably has ‘im convinced I’m Hephaestus, too. No privacy at all 'round this place,_ he thought.

 

After a quick morning rinse in some nicely scented, warmed water, he went down to the courtyard and accepted a bit of bread and a nicely poached duck egg for his breakfast. While he was eating, it occurred to him Rose had not been waiting for him to come downstairs, as he would have expected her to do. He hoped she had not already gone out with the family, to the festival. It would be difficult to locate her amidst the throngs he could hear moving about in the streets outside, making their rounds of Paphos' sacred sites, their perambulations culminating in the mid-day opening ceremony for the Temple of Aphrodite, by its new priestesses.

 

He asked the first female slave he saw to please go fetch Rose for him. Charis did not reply--instead, a stricken look overtook her face. She lowered her head, and holding up her hands in supplication, scurried away backwards from him, turning to rush up the stairs and disappear into the women’s quarters. He would never be given permission to follow her-- the women’s rooms were strictly off limits, especially to an unrelated, unmarried, adult man. To invade the sacred, protected space would bring shame on the entire household. So he was left, helplessly standing down in the courtyard, only able to look up hopefully at the balustrade. “Rose!” he called, then “Charis!” several times, but there was no answer.

 

“Bloody hell,” he cursed, and took matters into his own hands. Family reputation be damned. He climbed the stairs two at a time and burst into the forbidden chambers. Rose lay asleep, curled up, on a couch, piled under several silk blankets so that only the bottom of one foot was visible. “Rose!” he commanded, “are you alright?”

 

“Mmmmph…” was the response.

 

“Rose!”

 

“Mmm-hmmm,” and a hand slipped out to weakly wave him off.

 

“Eeek!” screamed Charis, “You can not be here! Out! Out! Out!” She flew into the room and tried to bat him away.

 

“Rose, what’s wrong?” He blew Charis out of his way like she was a mere feather, and pulled the blankets off Rose’s huddled form. “Iona!” he exclaimed, when the young girl, not Rose, blinked up at him.

 

Charis was suddenly gone from the room. Perhaps from the house. _If she’s clever, she’ll be on a boat off the island before she finds herself strangled over whatever’s goin’ on here,_ was the Doctor's grim thought. It was all too likely true.

 

“Iona, why aren’t you at the Temple? Where’s Rose?”

 

Iona’s eyes filled with hot tears. “He was supposed to come hours ago!” she wailed.

 

“Who? Who was supposed to come? Dammit, where’s Rose?”

 

“Xerxes!” she wailed, and broke down into incoherent sobs.

 

Realising he was not going to get any useful information from this quarter, he stormed back downstairs, and called for his attendant. “Where are the family?”

 

“They are out seeing to their civic duties, sir, except for Alexander, he is in the kitchen.” The slave pointed to a corner room off the courtyard. “He eats breakfast all morning, he eats until they throw him out…”

 

The Doctor walked into the back kitchen, and took in a busy scene. There was a feast to be prepared for later this evening, and it did not seem possible that so many women could be in one room at the same time. In the midst of the swirling tempest of chopping, steaming and simmering, Alexander sat on a stool, waiting for his next tidbit.

 

“Just give me the burned ones, Jocosta, pleeeease--” he was entreating one matronly woman, who looked like she couldn’t choose between braining the boy or giving him a cuddle.

 

“Alexander,” the Doctor called.

 

“Hephaestus!” Alexander was thrilled to see his divine house guest, until he remembered that he had recently helped the man’s wife run off to have sex with other men up at the temple, and tried to scurry off his stool and make his escape.

 

“Oh no you don’t,” the Doctor had him by the ear in a flash. “Ye’re takin’ me to wherever ‘Aphrodite’ is, and tellin’ me what the Hades is goin’ on!” he growled, and led the boy out into through the house and into the street. “Now lead me to her!" he commanded. “I know you know where she is. You’re the kind knows everythin’ that goes on, you rascal, 'cause your at th' bottom of it!"

 

* * *

 

Reclining upon a gilded sofa within the sidechambers of the temple, Rose had never been so clean. Even the folds of her ears had been lovingly bathed and oiled. _Iona wasn't kidding, this is the best spa day, ever!_ she thought. There was a great deal of group nudity, another two dozen young women being treated to the same ministrations, but no one seemed concerned with modesty, at least not in this setting. Rose soon overcame her initial discomfort--all the passive sponge bathing then the ensuing, seemingly endless, massaging with oils would make just about anything tolerable.

 

The giant statue of Aphrodite that lay within the temple's soaring central chamber was nude, too, at least for now. From her vantage point, Rose could see several older women wrangling an enormous woven garment into position at the Goddess' feet, that would evidently be placed upon her at some point today. Her great marble head had been beautifully painted to give her eyes of blue, lips and cheeks of scarlet, and glossy black tresses, and an elaborate wreath of leaves and roses placed upon her head. More garlands were laid out on the temple floor, ready to further adorn her, _Probably after her dress goes on,_ Rose guessed.

 

The overall tone today was reverent and quiet, with very little of the giggling or chattering one might expect from a gathering of young ladies. Rose recalled that only marriage had seemed more important to Iona than this event, and she could sense the nervous awe each of her fellow priestesses were feeling. For that, she had concluded, is what they were meant to be. _Sorta like altar servers in church,_ she mused. She had only been to a handful of Anglican services, but had seen enough to feel she had some idea of what might be expected of her when it was time to take up today's duties.

 

After their bathing and massaging, they were dressed in matching, diaphanous linen dresses that were no more than one long circle of cloth draped in a criss-crossing way that barely covered their breasts, buttocks and... _Mons Venus,_ Rose remembered hearing it called. _Venus, that's another name for Aphrodite. And Mons..._

 

 _"Mound of Venus",_ the Tardis informed her, with what Rose felt was a sniff of distaste.

 

 _Is she a prig, then, like the rest of the Gallifreyans? That would make sense,_ Rose surmised. She did not have time to contemplate the association further, as it was time for the ladies to have their hair braided and arranged, which was not performed nearly as gently as the bathing and massaging had been.

 

Rose heard "Ow!" coming from several couches, including her own.

 

A final application of rouge, eyeshadow and lip tint to make each girl match the soaring Aphrodite they were meant to serve, and it was time to see the Oracle. One by one, the girls were led out. This took quite a long time, and Rose was grateful to be near the top of the line, as the waiting around was beginning to get boring.

 

She was led through the central chamber, and into a darkened room roiling with thick clouds of heavily fragranced steam. _Too much time in here and they'll have to do my hair again!_ she thought. Thinking of hair styling, she became aware of missing her mother. _She would love all this... No,_ she reminded herself, _the last I saw her, she gave me all that trouble 'bout if the Doctor and I were havin' sex, goin' on about it in the middle of a chip shop, of all places, and then the Doctor went all aggro 'n stormed off, and then she has the cheek to put that giant box of extra-large condoms in my bag, after I told 'er I don't need 'em, and then the Doctor saw 'em, and thought I'd bought 'em, and he hid from me for four days. Never did convince him they weren't my idea. No, glad she's not here, sure she'd embarrass me again--_

 

"What will thee seek here, in Aphrodite's chambers? Speak!" An intimidatingly tall, willowy woman with a face painted heavily in white paint commanded Rose out of her daydream.

 

"Oh, I have to ask something?" Rose inquired.

 

"All mortals desire to see their future! She has pulled up the tapestries that hide her innermost rooms. Walk in, girl, and gain what knowledge thou wilt of the affairs of your tiny, human heart!"

 

"Thanks for the offer, but my 'tiny heart' as you put it really doesn't want to know the future. Rather be surprised, yeah? Though maybe you can help me..."

 

"You ask a favor of an Oracle! What right do you have?"

 

"I _am_ Aphrodite's priestess today, and she's all about love, right?" Rose felt shy, but figured if anyone could put things right, it would be the Goddess of Love, on her holiest day, so she bashed on. "The thing is, I've never been in love. Thought I was once, before, but not really. But now, there's this man, I travel with him, and I think, I might be, you know, in love...But I'm pretty sure he doesn't fancy me. It...it hurts, you see..."

 

Without warning, tears began to drip down her rouged cheeks, and Rose found herself lifting her hands, amazed to find herself praying to a Greek goddess. As absurd as it was, she desperately grasped at the chance for some relief from the torment of unrequited feeling that had come from her once-innocent acceptance of the Doctor's invitation to live and travel by his side.

 

The Oracle's eyes rolled back into her head, and lifting her visage to the heavens she eerily intoned:

 

"Who makes you cry? Who abuses you so? I see him now--how cruelly he treats you! No more shall he torment you, for I, Aphrodite, have come to stand with you as your comrade in battle! Together we will vanquish all your cares and sighs! For I say this to you,

 

_Him that ran,_

_Now he pursues!_

_Gifts rejected--_

_He gives now to you._

_E'en unbidden,_

_His hearts on fire,_

_Reason rebirthed,_

_By Love, as Desire._ "

 

Rose reverently backed from the Oracle's chamber, her up-do drooping, but her spirits lifted once again, soaring upon the wings of Aphrodite's golden doves.

 

* * *

 

Faced with Hephaestus' wrath, Alexander spilled the lentils. He told the Doctor everything--the planned elopement, the swap under Iona's veil, Xerxes the no-show bridegroom. The Doctor stood incredulous. "Rose, I mean, Antheia, she wanted to go?" His tone had taken a turn for the hurt.

 

"She did hop right into the car, without a fuss," Alexander said. He inflated his little chest. "Do you want me to try and get her back for you?" Then he lowered his voice to a hush, and whispered, "Think we should go get Zeus?"

 

The Doctor's mind was filling up with one vivid thought, an image, bright as hell: the host from last night's party dragging Rose onto a couch and doing every last one of the wretched things to her young body he had said he would. _Stupid girl, does she think it will be adorable young men who come calling? Does she actually think it will be a nice time? These fools don't even have a word for the clitoris!_ "I promise you one thing," he growled, "Parmenion the Pervert WILL NOT 'AVE 'ER!"

 

He pointed at the villa and loudly ordered, "You are gonna go back in tha' house and get your sister, NOW, 'cause I'm marchin' her straight up to tha' temple, where she's gonna get Rose out a' this dangerous situation she hadn't any right to put 'er in! An' then _she_ can spend th' rest a' th' week on _her_ back, underneath ev'ry randy 'pillar a' th' community' in Cyprus!"

 

"LIKE HADES YOU SAY!" An enraged youth leapt out of the next-door portico where he had been lurking, and began furiously pummeling the Doctor with his fists and forearms, blindly thrashing at any part of the older, larger man he might strike.

 

"Oi! Knock it off!" The Doctor easily held the young man off with one arm, and took a look at him. "Let me guess, this would be Xerxes now, wouldn't it! This day just gets better and better. Quit your swingin' at me 'fore ye get hurt, son, calm down."

 

"Take it back, what you said, no one will touch my wife! Not today, not ever!" Xerxes howled.

 

Alexander was overtaken with happy excitement. "We thought you weren't coming! You still want to marry Iona?"

 

Xerxes answered, past the tight grip at arm's length the Doctor still had on his shoulder. "Yes, of course, I want her! I am late because I had trouble finding a cove to beach my boat, where I would not be discovered. By the time I walked into the city, everyone was already out in the street!"

 

"Iona will be so happy! I will go and tell her now!" Alexander cried, and began to run for the house.

 

"Alexander!" the Doctor called after him. "Tell her to round up Charis. Tell them they must both dress as slaves, and then come down here. And for Zeus' sake, no luggage, we'll have enough t' handle as it is."

 

The Doctor looked back to Xerxes, as Alexander headed into the villa. He had been telling this young man to calm down, but really it was him needed to do. His outburst, saying what he had about Iona just now, it was so out of character for him. _Bloody hormones, I'm raging around in a jealous fog._ He apologised.

 

"Xerxes, I am sorry, for what I said, talk like tha', it's not me, it's just I'm very... upset... about this. I'm sure Iona is a fine girl, and had no idea what she was askin' for. No woman should be subject to these barbaric practices, askin' for 'em or not, and I swear, I want to help you. But," he said, as he slowly let go of his hold on the youth, watchful lest he begin attacking him again, "you have to help me, too, eh?"

 

Xerxes nodded, and put his fists down. "You Athenians--you are from Athens, I can tell--you are right to refuse to have these temples in your state. Aphrodite has no place in the lives of respectable people! I want to bring some Athenian morals to this nation! I've had it with the wanton behavior of our women here on Cyprus!"

 

"Well let's not take it too far in the opposite direction. What's the fun in lockin' all your women up and not lettin' 'em have any lives a' their own?" the Doctor said, but he could tell his lecture fell on deaf ears. He inwardly sighed. _Why do things 'tween th' sexes 'ave to be so cocked up, excuse the pun, always, across all a' time 'n space?_ "My future wife is up there now, and I have to get her out! You help me, and I help you elope. That's th' deal. I have a fast ship, I will take you and Iona anywhere you need to go. Now how are we gonna get Rose out a' th' temple? Any ideas?"

 

* * *

 

Rose was instructed to stand with the other girls who had already seen the Oracle, just inside the temple entrance, forming two neat rows. The great Aphrodite was bedecked now in her woven, woolen dress, and had been given great streaming sprays of flowers to hold. Rose had a view to the outdoors, through the open, columned entryway. A cage of cooing doves had been set between the pillars, along with some sharp knives and a smoldering fire in a large copper hearth. _Ooo, a dove release! How sweet,_ she thought.

 

A terrible amount of standing around, looking pretty, ensued. Rose tapped her foot and crossed her arms. She was quickly given a dirty look by a girl to her left. _Not reverent enough, I suppose._ She fought down an urge to start whistling.

 

After an eternity, when all the young priestesses were present and in their rows, and they were still just waiting, Rose could not stop herself from whispering to the girl who had admonished her, "This is a lot of sitting and standing around, innit? Aren't we meant to be doing somethin'?"

 

The girl pretended she did not hear, keeping still and prim as she thought Rose should. But the girl to Rose's right overheard, and whispered back, "I know! What are they waiting for! Bring in the men already!"

 

"Shh!" scolded girl number one.

 

Girl number two leaned forward to look at girl number one, and replied, "Stuff it." Then to Rose, "I hope it's that Governor from up North, to do my de-flowerin' today. Saw him arrive yesterday, he's dreamy! Looked to have really strong arms. Big hands, too, know what I mean?" She gave a wink. "I think he fancied me, hope he did. Hope he recognizes me! But we're top of the line, won't have to wait long, eh?" She grinned.

 

"De-flower you?" Rose began, then it hit her. _Oh my God, 'they worship you... yadda, yadda, yadda...' These skimpy, see-through outfits... I'm a complete IDIOT!_ "Men are coming in here, to pick out a girl, and, then..." Girl number two kept grinning. "S-E-X?" Rose clarified.

 

Girl number two giggled.

 

"Holy crap, I have to get out of here!" Rose cried.

 

"SHHHH!!!" said girl number one, again.

  
"Oh, really, STUFF IT!" Rose echoed.


	5. He Shall Pursue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander causes chaos; Callistratus rolls into town; a donkey boards the Tardis; the Doctor finally reaches his Rose; Parmenion the Lesser is effectively pantsed.

**Chapter 5: He Shall Pursue**

 

* * *

The flotilla of triremes approaching Paphos' port represented the finest of the Cypriot Navy. Atop the high-castle of the lead ship proudly stood Xerxes' father, Fleet Commander Ophellus. Arranged behind him were the "pillars of the community" the Doctor was desperate to keep from advancing upon the temple, lest they get to Rose before he could: governors, archons, captains of enterprise and, yes, Paphos’ own Parmenion the Lesser.

 

The “dreamy” northern governor with the strong arms and big hands, whose arrival Rose’s friend was warmly anticipating, was boasting to his fellows: "I am most anxious to see my one hundred head of cattle at the ready. I have arranged for them to be driven behind us, to the temple. There I will humbly ask Aphrodite to accept them in sacrifice, and of course, provide for today's feasting. I certainly hope their number will prove sufficient, and that, being the finest northern grain-finished beef, they will please the Goddess.”

 

Parmenion sniffed peevishly, finding himself badly upstaged. He had donated only one mere crate of doves, for ritual gutting and soothsaying of their entrails by the Oracle. "A hundred head might just do, Apollyon,” he whinged, “but I do hope they're not too skinny. My city is a large one, you know, lots of mouths to feed. I believe there are more citizens in it than in all of your state, but I’m sure you have done your best.”

 

Apollyon rolled his eyes and exchanged smirking looks with the owner of the island’s leading mining concern and a handful of other dignitaries, behind Parmenion's back. The Archon of Paphos was, evidently, a notorious pillock.

 

A few hundred citizens and ten times that number of women, children and slaves were gathered at the docks, awaiting the flotilla, anticipating watching the procession, and of course getting in line for some public feasting. The citizens were additionally looking forward to the promise of a night of binge drinking on someone else’s _drachma_.

 

Moving with crafty, swift steps, little Alexander ducked and dodged his way through the crowd. Upon returning from giving Iona and Charis the good news and their evacuation instructions, he was drafted into the Doctor’s and Xerxes’ plan. “If we send you down to the docks, think you can create some chaos? Keep ‘em busy?” the Doctor had asked. There never was a hero, tasked with a quest, more born to it. _Chaos!_ he kept gleefully repeating in his mind.

 

He had been entrusted by Xerxes with a whole _didrachm_ , should he want the help of its heavy silver to pay for some assistance. Xerxes had imagined Alexander might need to enlist some strong-bodied men, to stay the dignitaries from alighting from their ships. Instead, the boy saw something much, much better. There upon the pier, as though delivered by the Gods themselves, which, given the nature of the key players in today’s drama he thought quite likely, were arranged next to one another the very things he needed to create the ultimate diversion: a sad huddle of mediocre musicians, playing flutes out of tune and drums off-tempo, before a pen of one hundred enormous bulls.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor had pointed Xerxes towards the general direction of the cave where his "fast ship" was parked, in the hills behind the great temple, and handed him a key. "Don't generally give these out--DON'T lose it. Go straight there with the girls, and when you get inside, try not to wet yourself or pass out. Stay strong for the women, eh? And for the gods' sakes, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHIN'. Just...stand there. Keep right by th' doors. Don't go wanderin' about. I'll be up shortly. Got it?"

 

Xerxes nodded. He wondered why and how the stranger's ship was up a hill, how exactly he was supposed to use the key, which was of a shape he had never seen before, and why he, as an experienced navy man, was being accused of being so cowardly that he might soil his sandals just because he went aboard a boat, but he had no time to ask any of these questions, as the Doctor had quickly disappeared. At least there was one part of his instructions he understood--he could relate to the importance of not touching another man's property! He thought of Iona, and considered trying to make it with her to his own ship, directly. But the tall, stern stranger had entrusted him with a key to his vessel, and had commanded him in a way that brooked no argument. Truth was, Xerxes felt a bit in over his head, and was glad the older man had shown up.

 

He heard the clipping of the donkey's hooves before he saw it rounding the back of Iona's villa, being led by Charis. It was a scrawny beast, made all the sadder by being loaded down with as many baskets of Iona's things as could be tied to him, and then a few more atop of those.

 

Dressed in plain woven wool, wrapped well in a mantle to hide her identity, Iona met Xerxes' eyes with her own as she came toward him, and the two broke into foolish grins, grasping hands clumsily, neither sure how to behave. Lest Iona see him blush, turning colors like a cuttle-fish, the youth stood tall, and began to command his little crew through the crowded festival.

 

* * *

 

Callistratus had been put in a bad position yesterday. Alexander had disappeared, and while the willful boy would likely be whipped for wandering off, so would his babysitter, for having lost him. After several hours of scouring the countryside, unwilling to present his problem to his Master, Callistratus decided there was nothing for it but to follow his original instructions; he pointed himself towards Paphos and began walking.

 

Exhausted and thirsty, he felt near collapse when he finally crested the last of the endless series of ridges he had spent all last night, and half this day, traversing, in an attempt to avoid the main road where he knew his Master would be traveling.

 

Rounding a sharp bend on his narrow footpath he stopped short, and pressed himself amongst some bushes, for he saw a thing which astonished him. Just ahead, of an unknown design, though it must be ancient, as it was made of wood, stood a small blue shrine where he knew no such thing had ever stood before. It was being entered by a young man in naval dress, accompanied by two female slaves and a badly overladen donkey. Callistratus slipped quickly to the building's side, hearing gasps and cries from the women, then the sailor exclaim, “It’s bigger on the inside!” before the doors slammed shut.

 

 _And what shrine ever had doors?_ he wondered. He walked around before it, hesitating, torn between his mission to keep after Alexander and his need for a bit of a rest and something cool to drink. The thought that the worshipers might have brought libations to offer to this shrine's Gods decided him, so he pushed upon its doors. When they did not budge, he raised his fists and pounded lightly.

 

He would have turned to flee in terror upon beholding the shrine's interior, had he not been hailed and then dragged in by Iona, who of course recognized and knew him well.

 

"Mistress, what are you doing in the rags of a slave woman?" he cried upon seeing Iona, for her being without her usual adornments of fine linen, jewelry and elaborate hair braids was as startling a sight as this enchanted building.

 

"Never mind that, Callistratus, you look awful! Charis, give him some water, there's a skin in the front right basket," Iona commanded.

 

Xerxes was being ignored, as he was standing quite still, unable to speak after his first, obvious comment. _Nope, not touching a thing in here,_ he thought. He had stumbled just a few feet inside the doors, daring to come this far only because the donkey had shoved him from behind, as it followed its mistress. _Nope, not wandering about, no worries there, mate._ In fact, he was using all his courage to not bolt right back out, and make a run for it.

 

Callistratus thankfully accepted the goatskin of water Charis handed him, and explained, between sips, "Iona, I must find your little brother--he has disappeared."

 

"No, no, he is with us! He will be coming up here soon, along with this big, tough-looking man from Athens, who supposedly owns this ship. He's gone to get his girlfriend or niece or something, from the temple--" Iona explained.

 

Callistratus sank to the Tardis floor. "It's true!" he croaked. "Alexander told me, but I did not believe him." The broadest smile of the old man's long life broke across his face. "I gave _Aphrodite_ a tour of _my_ perfume factory. Well I'll be." He stayed grinning for a moment, then took another swig of refreshing water. "Where are they now?" he asked.

 

Xerxes began to put two and two together, himself, but just to be sure he understood, he asked, "Where is _who_?"

 

"Why Hephaestus and Aphrodite, of course!" Callistratus replied.

 

"The temple!" Iona clapped her hands in delight. "Aphrodite is at her own temple, in disguise...as ME!"

 

"And boy is Hephaestus mad!" Xerxes added, seeing it all so clearly now.

 

Leaping to his feet, Callistratus declared, "This I have to see!" Before they could stop him, he was out of the Tardis doors and down the hill towards town.

 

* * *

 

The musicians were more than happy to worsen-up their playing for the great sum Alexander waved at them. They even loaned him a set of pipes, to join in, and merrily together began sawing away at the loudest tune they knew. The dignitaries alighting to the pier could not hear themselves speak the formal words of greeting and thanks they had all so carefully prepared. Resignedly, they shrugged and began to head straight into their processing.

 

"Would someone get those cursed cacophonists out of here!" shouted Apollyon, who, passing into the streets, turned to glare at the loathsome band. That's when the Governor caught, out of the corner of his eye, the gate to the pen filled with his sacred cows being slyly swung open by a boy of about nine years of age. Lifting his pan pipe high into the air, the child brought it down with a great "Thwack!" upon the rump of one animal as hard as he could, making it bellow and buck, then surge from its enclosure. "You there! Stop!" he cried, but it was already too late, and he watched on in horror as all the bulls began to panic and follow their comrade out onto the docks, the slaves he had hired to drive them barely leaping away in time to prevent being trampled.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor flicked his sonic screwdriver to setting 2428-B. He did not even slow down when two guards posted at the base of the temple’s ramp stepped before him to try and bar his way. Without breaking stride, he merely plowed through them, reaching over as he passed to grab off one of the men’s crested bronze helmets, which he settled onto his own head as he quipped back behind him, “Ta!” The helmet’s ornate nose guard made his countenance all the more fierce and imposing, just the look he was going for: Hacked-off Hephaestus. Approaching the front steps he lifted his arm and turned on the screwdriver. A great fountain of fiery sparks began to flow, accompanied by terrible crackling and piercing pyrotechnic whistles. He leapt up the steps to the great entryway, where he knew his voice would echo to its maximum effect, and there he bellowed, "I WANT ME WIFE!"

 

* * *

 

Alexander ran with glee from the docks, following the great herd of beasts. Apollyon, up against a wall to keep out of harm’s way, saw him approaching, and snatched him up by the arm as he raced past.

 

"I've got you now, you prankster! I know what you did!" Apollyon cried.

 

Alexander began to cry, too, upon realising a group of motherly women had begun to gather around, their faces filling with concern after having witnessed how the child's arm was so roughly pulled.

 

"Now, now, what's the trouble here?" demanded the wife of the town's leading olive oil exporter.

 

"He has stolen my cows and stampedes them through the streets!" Apollyon declared. "This boy has destroyed the Feast of Aphrodite!"

 

"It's not true," Alexander sniffed, "I think he just did not like my flute playing. And, dear ladies, it was done entirely in his honor! I’ve been practicing for weeks.” Tears washed down his little face. “Really, I tried to play well for him. I really tried hard. I don't know anything about his cows."

 

"Leave this poor babe alone!" another lady said to Apollyon. Then to Alexander, "Are you okay, honey? One of this man's out-of-control animals didn't hurt you, did it?" She scowled at the Governor.

 

Apollyon, finding himself hopelessly outmaneuvered, threw his hands to the sky and huffed back up the street, following a trail of shouting festival goers, trampled decorations, toppled carts, and exploding tables of treats that had gaily lined the parade route.

 

Alexander gave the kind women all a kiss, and they in turn each pinched his rosy, round cheeks, and commented on what a fine, sweet boy he was as he winked and dashed away again.

 

* * *

 

Rose was never happier to see the Doctor than now, as he strode into the temple. The head priestess, her attendants and the newly minted _hetaire_ all scurried from his determined path. His fearsome sparking from his mighty raised fist illuminated the previously hushed interior, as if Helios himself had just driven his golden sun chariot into the vaulted space. The ladies all bent their faces to the floor, not daring to look upon this vision directly, lest they, too, burst into sparks.

 

Rose stood waiting for his approach, delighted, her arms crossed casually. That was, until she saw his expression, and realised he was fixing _her_ with all this fury. She shrank under his glare. _Oi, what’ve I done now?_ she wondered.

 

The Doctor reached into his pocket, and threw, clattering down at her feet, half a dozen large gold coins Xerxes had kindly donated to him, their sheen glowing in the light of the continued pyrotechnics. The girl next to Rose, who had been enjoying today so much already, let out an appreciative whistle. “Blimey, I think this bloke really fancies you!” she gleefully commented.

 

Rose was not sure how to proceed. The Doctor was just standing there, glowering away at her, waiting for her to do something. _What’s he waitin’ for? What am I supposed to do when the worshipers throw money at you? Oh, somethin’ about inner chambers… and then… the yadda, yadda, yadda… and, oh my..._ she blushed. “You, uh, you wanna go, back there,” she motioned behind her to the back of the temple, “with me?” _Thought he didn’t have sex at all, or at least, not with girls!_ She looked up, startled, from the coins at her feet, to his face, and then directly into his eyes. What she saw there sent a thrill coursing up from between her legs, that made her gasp.

 

She had meant her comment as a question, but he must have taken it as an invitation, for upon hearing her words, he grabbed her hand and began pulling her along with him, past the great Aphrodite, into the far reaches of the temple, where he threw back a thick tapestry and came to a stop with her inside a small, windowless room. A long, wide couch lay among a veritable bower of fragrant flowers and cut greenery, ringed by several softly flickering oil lamps, all at the ready for this chamber’s anticipated activities.

 

* * *

  
Down below, the oncoming wave of running bulls broke in a froth when it hit the base of the temple mount, turning the animals away in all directions to fan out into the city. The dignitaries had mostly given up trying to reach the temple, choosing to take cover instead, but one man was still trying to scramble his way in. He began screaming like a little girl as one of the beasts finally ran him down, piercing through his robes with a flick of its wicked horn, to toss him into the air. The bull gave him a great kick to the groin for good measure, as he came down in a heap on the paving stones. Parmenion the Lesser would not be in any shape to enjoy the inner chambers of the temple, today. Or the next few months.


	6. Exode (Exit Song)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Rose discuss their little misunderstanding; Callistratus loses his cool; Iona and Xerxes' parents come to terms; a brief party on the Tardis; the Doctor hands out parting gifts.

**Chapter 6: Exode (Exit Song)**

 

* * *

Rose shifted back and forth nervously on her bare feet. _No need for shoes, when you’re supposed to be in bed all day,_ she supposed. The Doctor was not speaking to her. He was too busy feeling up the back wall, and looking at his sonic. She finally could not take the silence any longer.

 

“Doctor, umm, what are you doing?” she asked.

 

He wheeled around to face her. “What am _I_ doin’? That’s a loaded question.” He pointed his finger at her and shook it. “The question should be, what the bloody hell ‘re _you_ doin’? I find you standin’ there waitin’ on some random arsehole to come in and bed you? Did you know you might be here for _days_ , handin’ out sexual favours? Figured you'd eventually send word you might be busy a while? And what were you goin’ to do when your first customer realized you aren’t a virgin, eh? Didja know they’d strangle you for tha’?” He turned back away from her and added, “Ye’ve gutted me Rose, you’ve truly gutted me.”

 

Rose felt hot anger rising up inside her now, replacing the amorous feeling that had been there only moments ago. “You think I _wanted_ to come in here and have sex with a bunch of men?” He did not reply. Then she really lost her temper. “That's what you think of me? I disappear and you assume I've swanned off up here to rut about with strangers, for money? You fucking wanker! How come you didn’t assume I’d been kidnapped?”

 

He wheeled around again, but now there was a hint of fear in his eyes. Fear of her. Fear born of the dawning realisation that he might have just gone and right properly insulted her again.

 

Before he could answer, she launched into him some more. “I only came here to help Iona, she needed a double--I didn’t know it was a sex thing! I thought they were gonna chant, read from a scroll or somethin’ and like, burn incense at my feet, Iona said I'd get a free massage and a pedicure. Sounded like a damn good way to pass the day, seein’ as you weren’t 'round, was ya'? Nooo, you were off to that stupid bachelor party full of hairy men or slave boys or whatever the hell you were lookin' forward to!”

 

He grunted, not quite ready to do anything so radical as apologise. His emotions were still worked up from the assault on the temple, and he still felt the disappointed rage which had overcome him at the thought of Rose, his Rose, choosing a handful of strangers over himself. So he threw one more accusation, one he thought might stick: “If you did na' know what this was, then, well, it’s your own fault! I told you to go to th’ library, twice I told you, and read up, and I assumed you actually listened, for once, so I assumed you’d ‘ave ‘ad some clue as to wha’ you were about, but nooo, you never listen, do you--”

 

“Oh, that’s rich! Your library was an education, alright! ‘Cultural Anthropology’ my arse! All you’ve got are books full a’ oiled up, naked greek boys, and travel guides on how to have sex on every planet in the known universe, and, by the way, I know how there's no reason to bother stoppin' in at Gallifrey--yeah, you can raise your eyebrows all you want, I read all about it…”

 

The Doctor parsed this information for a moment, then smacked his head with his open palm and growled, “JAAAAAACCCCKKK!”

 

Rose paused. “You mean--those were Jack’s books? Captain Jack? They weren’t yours?”

 

“Ye think _I_ would ‘ave books like _tha'_?”

 

They stood watching one another, plum out of anything to argue about. Rose felt a laugh coming on. She tried to stop it, she even slapped a hand over her mouth, but it came through her nose instead. She let out the first of a series of most unladylike snorts and guffaws.

 

“I don’t see wha’s funny ‘bout any a’ this,” he complained. “But we have to get back to th’ Tardis, we've got guests. An' I’ve ‘ad enough a’ Cypriots and their savage sexual practices,” he added, in a grumble.

 

Resetting his screwdriver, he told her, “Stand back.” He aimed at the section of wall he had deemed the weakest, and began sonicing down a hole in it large enough for them to walk out of, into the sunshine beyond.

 

A part of Rose was sorry to leave the temple. NOT for the other men, _Yuck, the stuff people come up with,_ she thought. No, sorry to leave because it meant the Doctor did not actually want her right now, in this little scented room with its pretty lamps, on this silk sofa...

 

 _When we get a mo', I’m gonna ask him, point-blank, whether he does or does not fancy me. I’ve had enough a’ his teasin’,_ she decided. The courage to confront him came mostly from her growing certainty she might like his answer--for it had not escaped her notice that the Doctor’s actions today were those of a deeply jealous man.

 

* * *

 

Callistratus felt his sandals sprout the wings of Hermes' as he ran down the hillside. His stride was long and light, youthful again, as it was before years of stooping and sitting got the better of his aging body. Any pains from his exertions were obliterated by the heady rush of these personal encounters with his favorite God. _I gave him a tour! A tour! Me! All those years perfecting our stills, and Hephaestus noticed my work! My soul is bound for the Elysian fields for certain, now!_ Callistratus knew access to the best parts of the Underworld depended far less on one's having performed great, heroic deeds, than on catching the eye of the right people. _It's all about who you know,_ he affirmed to himself, smugly.

 

His anticipation of seeing his divine patron once more, perhaps discussing metallurgy under acidic conditions, possibly assisting in the chastisement of the God's naughty wife, thus gaining further favour, perhaps enough for his soul to attain even a place upon the Isles of the Blessed, these things began to overwhelm his mind. So when the humble slave came within viewing distance of the Temple of Aphrodite, and beheld the mighty Olympian pulling his errant Goddess through a gaping hole impossibly smashed through the great, thick stone, then pulling her along, heading straight up the hill right at him, Hephaestus' craggy visage hot as his famed forge, the poor mortal lost all his hoped-for composure. He could not help but begin bleating, repeatedly, like a struck beast,

 

"HEPHAESTUS IS STEALING APHRODITE FROM THE TEMPLE! HEPHAESTUS IS STEALING APHRODITE FROM THE TEMPLE! HEPHAESTUS IS STEALING APHRODITE FROM THE TEMPLE!"

 

Alexander heard the commotion coming from above the mount, as did a hundred other festival goers. Immediately, a forest of pointing arms lifted to finger the path of the fleeing "Ancient Tardians"-cum-Olympians. Alexander rushed up after them, swiftly gaining. He was almost caught up as he went tearing past Callistratus, who was frozen in his repeated hollering.

 

Alexander slid to a halt and raised his fist to his elder. "Shut up, Callistratus, you fool, or I shall beat you until your bones are powdered! You are ruining their disguise!"

 

The child took off again, Callistratus gathering his wits to follow upon his charge's heels.

 

Callistratus, as much ashamed by his helpless howling just now, as much as by Alexander's scolding, snarled, "Not if I powder yours first, you little romancer of livestock! You foul _suagroi_."

 

" _Methusai!_ " Alexander threw back as he ran.

 

" _Skatophage!_ " Callistratus hurled up in reply.

 

The insults flew as their feet, until they found themselves piling up against the Tardis doors, which the Doctor and Rose had just slammed as they entered their refuge.

 

"Let us in! Let us in!" Alexander demanded. Looking behind themselves, they saw a multitude of gaping, squawking Cypriots charging at them, up the hill, clamoring for a closer look-see at this once-in-a-lifetime vision.

 

In the control room, dodging around the women and Xerxes and narrowly escaping slamming into the side of... _a DONKEY?_ , the Doctor reached his console. On the view screen, Rose saw Alexander with his back to the doors, the menacing crowd about to reach him and Callistratus.

 

"Doctor, quick, let them in, that mob'll tear them to bits!"

 

The Doctor felt they were in no danger, but Iona began to call out her little brother's name, in answer to his pleas from the other side of the doors. With a sigh, he commanded them to open just long enough for Alexander and Callistratus to slip inside.

 

"An' tha's it!" he loudly declared. "No more passengers! I mean it!" Flicks and nudges of switches, and he set the Tardis to seeking out the cove where Xerxes' escape boat lay.

 

* * *

 

Commander Ophellus was sure his son's elopement had nothing to do with the melee swirling about him in the street, but he considered it a bit of good fortune in that it was providing excellent cover for his scheme to secure his son a landed wife, without paying out a single bolt of cloth in dowry for her. He figured the day's public events were a loss, and was just headed back to his ship to sail out and meet up with Xerxes early, when Iona's parents nearly knocked him over as they came sprinting around a corner.

 

"Commander, oh Commander, help us! Save us! It's terrible! The Gods of Mount Olympus have begun an assault upon us all," Eugeneia said, wringing her bangled wrists in her panic. "And Iona is up there, she is certain to be carried off by a Centaur, oh!" she brought a trembling hand to her forehead at the thought of it, and continued, "You and your fighting men, surely you can pull together a rescue party, as brave Theseus saved the Lapith women from those--beastly--hooves--and, and hairy--hooves--" She broke down into sobs in her husband's arms.

 

Ophellus was a thrifty, some might say cheap, man, but he was no villain, and was moved to honesty by this display of motherly distress. Keeping in mind he was speaking to people he would likely have to spend every Feast day with for the remainder of his life, he carefully navigated his revelation of today's elopement to paint it in the most sympathetic and wholesome light he could.

 

Eugeneia was overjoyed to hear her daughter was being carried off by a proper husband, not some half-man, half-horse, but Iona's father seemed to get the big picture quickly. No publicly honored priestess daughter. No giant dowry. And no regional alliance with their neighbor the olive oil mogul, either, which was the worst news, as that would lead to all sorts of annoying consequences. His expression turned from its previous one of mild concern, to brooding dispair. He could not stop himself from bitterly exclaiming, "There goes my discounted shipping aboard the neighbor's fleet."

 

"Kind in-laws-to-be, why, if it is shipping which concerns you, think of my position! How often do I just happen to have a bit of cargo space when I just happen to be going the way you require? Why, so often, there's no need to ask, just bring your goods to harbor and as Iris effortlessly slides messages across the rainbow's arc, so shall your needs be fulfilled, no charge, of course. Now, allow me to take you for a little sea cruise aboard my flagship trireme," Ophellus coaxed, "to surprise our young lovers mid-flight, giving them some time alone, first, of course, to, well, elope, and you know, yadda, yadda, yadda... Just imagine how happy they will be when we eventually approach and interrupt their evening, and they find their loved ones all aboard together, of one happy accord!"

 

As the newly-forged extended family boarded the trireme and pushed off for a pleasant afternoon of sailing, Ophellus reflected upon his powers of persuasion, and congratulated himself on his handling of the situation. He was, indeed, the consummate politician. Iona and Xerxes could look forward to a harmonious and prosperous future, supported as it would be on the backs of Cyprus' slaves and the misdirected taxes of its citizens.

 

* * *

 

It was a party. A party in the Tardis.

 

Charis and Rose were parked next to the gangway rails, engaged in conversation the Doctor could not quite hear, though he made out his name a couple of times. Whatever they were discussing, it was too-frequently punctuated by peals of girlish laughter, each salvo preceded by Rose eyeing him up and down when she thought he was not looking. “Don’t know I was that funny,” he grumbled down to the control panel.

 

Iona and Xerxes were playing out some sort of “damsel in distress” scenario that would begin with the Tardis making a noise or any movement of any kind, followed by Iona screeching at the top of her lungs and then grabbing onto the nearest thing, which of course just happened to be Xerxes.

 

Alexander followed the Doctor like a gnat, always just out of reach from being batted away, and apparently deaf to instructions to piss off. The boy had touched, _Touched!_ something at least half a dozen times in under a minute. What was worse, he would not stop blowing on his pan pipes in answer to every noise the Tardis made, commenting brightly that we was “Making the music of the Gods!”

 

Weighted down with the luggage the Doctor distinctly remembered forbidding, and evidently confused by the grating on the floor, the donkey could only wander about sadly, bumping into struts and rails. Callistratus followed it, trying to keep all of its baskets on properly, lest they shift and spill. The pair would have been the least vexsome of the passengers, had the donkey not repeatedly let loose, on a random basis, with an ear-splitting “Iaaa! Iaaa! Iaaa!”, his braying inevitably setting Iona to more shrieking, Charis and Rose to more giggling, and Alexander to making more “music”.

 

Thankfully this trip lasted but a fraction of a second, once the Doctor figured out where the coordinates lay. He was only pushed to his mental brink, not sent sailing right out over it. That was, until he felt someone gently nudge at his bum. Unable to stop what he was doing at that moment, he could only hang onto his controls when the gentle _bump_ was followed by a truly violent _BASH_ to his posterior. It almost sent him sprawling at a particularly touchy moment in the landing sequence. He managed to keep himself and the ship upright, but when he wheeled around to confront his assailant, the donkey succeeded in knocking him off his balance via an overly-enthusiastic lick from waist to chin.

 

“Someone get this ass off me arse, tryin’ to land ‘ere!” he shouted. No one but Callistratus moved to get the donkey off the console, the rest of the crew being too amused, evidently, to help.

 

“Alright, tha’s enough a’ all a’ ya! Out, out you go! Out!” He waved them all off his ship and out the doors to the waiting beachhead, where they began milling about with the handful of navvies Xerxes had enlisted to row them away, discussing, probably, how they were going to get three extra passengers and a fully laden donkey on board in addition to Iona.

 

The Doctor declared, “Wait ‘ere, be right back,” and strode into the Tardis’ corridors.

 

Rose followed for a moment, calling out, “Where are you goin’?” but he did not answer her. She waited in the control room until he reappeared, arms full of books, including, she noted The Big Book of Greeks.

 

Outside the crowd was loading into Xerxes’ boat, which was already listing badly to port.

 

“Gather ‘round, time for gifts!” the Doctor grinned, and the party gathered in a bunch before him. “Xerxes, something for your men, first.”

 

The Doctor held out his stack of prurient reading material to the rowers. “This ‘ere is a collection I believe the ‘Oared Forces’ will appreciate. For Elysium’s sake, get ‘em off me ship.” The sailors immediately set upon perusing through them, looking quite pleased.

 

One small paperback was held out separate, and the Doctor called over Iona and Xerxes for a private presentation. “Now, kids--Xerxes, I'm addressin’ you, especially--‘ere’s a book has helped lots a’ married couples. I’m countin’ on you, Xerxes to read it seriously, and Iona, you make sure he does. Don’t let ‘im off the hook. Xerxes, pay special attention to Chapter Two, ‘Her Clitoris: The Little Engine That Can’, eh, mate?” With that speech, the Doctor handed over She Comes First: A Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman to the blushing bride and a now highly-intrigued bridegroom.

 

“Charis, Callistratus, ‘ere’s me change from earlier, three gold pieces each. I think you’ll find it enough to buy some land of your own, and your freedom if you wish.” That made Alexander and Iona scowl a bit, but then they seemed contented enough again after witnessing a round of happy tears and smiles from the two slaves, along with rebuffed attempts to hug their benefactor.

 

“Nothin’ for th’ donkey, just… Next time, when a God tells you ‘no luggage’, he means no luggage, eh? Alexander, your last. Step closer, I’ve a wager to make you.”

 

Alexander trotted forward, delighted. The Doctor reached into his pocket, and pulled out a nicely sized silver coin. “This ‘ere’s a souvenir I treasure. Can you see the head on it?” Alexander looked closer.

 

“That’s Alexander the Great! I would know him anywhere, everyone does!” little Alexander beamed.

 

“Now this 'ere, got it off 'is Majesty himself. I was there when he died, you know. Great man. Told ‘im to knock off th' drinkin’.” He shook his head sadly, remembering the nasty affair. “Anyways, I’ll make you a bet. I’m gonna flip this coin, and heads, I keep it, but if it’s tails, it’s yours. Agreed?”

 

Alexander nodded vigorously, and hoped against hope the coin would land tails up, as the Doctor deftly flipped it into the air and watched it come down with a soft thud into the sand. Alexander’s face fell: it was "Heads".

 

The Doctor waited just a moment, savouring the taste of revenge, then put the child out of his misery. “Well, seein’ that you’re so interested in it, and you are named after the man, I guess I can let you have it anyways.”

 

Alexander smiled his brightest smile of the day, yet, and darted forward to take up the new treasure. He began studying it excitedly, only a moment of confusion passing over his face as realised the coin had “Heads” on both sides! “You tricked me, Hephaestus! I am proud of you!” he quipped, grinning from ear to ear.

 

The Doctor threw his head back and laughed.

 

Alexander began immediately plotting. “This will come in handy, for sure! I know, I will bet Parmenion that I will be the next Archon of Paphos, and with this magic coin, I shall win a city!”

 

Rose and the Doctor stopped in the Tardis’ entryway, to watch for a moment, as the happy band crowded onto Xerxes' ship, pulling up anchor and setting the oars, all aboard waving and calling out their thanks and making supplications for the kind Gods to keep watch over them, and put in a good word with Hades when it was their turn to navigate the River Styx in the Underworld.

 

“Hope that boat doesn’t sink easy,” Rose commented, as the doors closed behind her. The Doctor only grunted in reply.

  
Dematerialising, putting as much time and distance as he could between himself and the ancient Mediterranean, the Doctor set his coordinates for sylvan peace and quiet, contemplating having some serious “alone time” and, hopefully, a great dollop of frolicking with his woman.


	7. His Hearts Afire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tender moments in the Tardis, after some blue language from Rose.

**Chapter 7: His Hearts Afire**

 

* * *

The Doctor went straight to the console and started doing something, _Dematerialising, most likely_ , Rose thought. She waited awkwardly at the corridor exit which led toward their living quarters, imagining he would surely have something to say about what they had just experienced. But he said nothing. She decided it was time-- she would follow through with her earlier resolve to confront him. _Never gonna get easier than right now, so here it goes..._ She pressed the soles of her bare feet onto the Tardis floor, and drew her hands into tight fists, to give herself courage. She lifted her head to speak--

 

"I'm takin' you for some actual bespoke perfume, 'Aphrodite'. Figure Paris'll do. _Le IXe Arondissement._ Show you the real thing this time. Then I want to show you me favorite swimmin' hole. I mean to ask you somethin', somethin' important. I'll even put on trunks." He looked up and smiled that great, wide smile he could produce with no warning. He flicked one of his controls with a final flourish, then strolled around the console towards her. He started whistling.

 

As she stood tall in the archway, still wound up to pitch her question, _Doctor, I want a straight answer, do you fancy me or not?,_ he reached out one cool, strong hand and caressed her cheek, granting her the kindest, sweetest, most intimate look she had ever had from him, and kept walking. Rose felt stunned into stillness, the small touch spreading across her body like a brush fire in hot, high winds. From a few yards farther down the corridor, he remarked over his shoulder, "But make sure you change. Some Frenchie sees you in tha' piece o' nothin', might try kidnappin' you for real! Put you in the _Folies Bergeres_." He disappeared around the bend.

 

Rose sighed and dutifully walked to her room, leaving her question unasked, but perhaps not unanswered. She started to change her outfit. She had just finished pulling on her jeans and fastening her bra, her Hellenic getup thrown down to the floor for the Tardis to recycle, when she heard a rustle at her door.

 

He had swung it open without knocking, and folded himself up in it, all denim and leather again, leaning against the jamb, arms folded, staring. Still grinning. "Need some help?"

 

Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you mind?"

 

"No. Don't suspect I do," he winked and sauntered in.

 

"You could knock, you know. Imagine if I was naked!"

 

He helped himself to a relaxed slump on the edge of her bed, and answered, "Not much left to imagine. Think I already saw most of it."

 

She breathed out an irritated mutter as she pulled a t-shirt over her head. Dressed, she stood and stared at him, waiting for him to... _What? What do I want him to do? Kiss me? Apologise? He should apologise while kissing me, yes that'd be just the thing..._

 

"Besides, I threw you your money--quite a lot, it was, too!" he went on.

 

Rose saw red. "You bloody arsehole!" she began shouting.

 

"Whoah, girl! I'm just havin' you on a bit--"

 

Rose lunged forward into his personal space, causing him to scramble up straight. She started wagging her finger at him. "S'not funny! Don't you think, not for one second, that that, situation, you put me in today was any kind a' FUNNY. And what were you doin', comin' 'round lookin' for a half-naked girl to throw money at, anyway? Got a funny answer for that?"

 

He did not know what to say. _Is she still confused, or is she just breakin' me bollocks?_ He decided it was the latter. "You can't be serious--" he started.

 

"Well _you_ seemed all ready to think the same thing a' _me_ , so turnabout's only fair, yeah?"

 

He let out a growl, his grin now long-departed, and began running his hands back and forth over his cropped head. "Rose, now stop this foolishness, I--"

 

That was evidently the wrong response because she started saying, "Foolishness? FOOLISHNESS?" her voice ramping up as she went. "I'M FULL A' FOOLISHNESS?!"

 

"Oi, dont put words in me mouth! But now you mention it, yeah, you're..." He paused a moment and smelled her. Standing only a few inches away, breathing as she was in his face, he got a good full-on dose of her scent, laced with all of her sexual hormones, whose monthly fluctuations he had learned to become unbearably aware of. He thought back--one, two, three weeks..."Rose, do you think you might be close to your menstrual period? I mean, you know how you get..."

 

"Oh, that takes the cake! You're a real prize winner tonight, mister! Out! Out with ya'!" She was waving him toward her door.

 

He spluttered, reddening, "And to think, I was gonna make you my fiancée tonight! Not marryin' some wailin' _bean nighe_ \--"

 

He was on his feet and she was backing him to the door. "Bean what? I'm a BEAN what now?"

 

"Banshee, it's a nasty woman who SCREAMS and SCREECHES at a bloke. Come fetch me when she's gone, and the love a' me life's back!"

 

"Hold on," Rose pulled up short. "Your fiancée? What are you on about? I agreed to marry you? Did I miss something'?"

 

He shifted from foot to foot, looking at the floor. "Well, I was gonna ask you, if you'd--marry me. Well, that's what you'd call it. We called it 'bonding', on Gallifrey..."

 

Rose softened her voice a little, and asked,"Thought your lot didn't go in for that kind of thing."

 

He looked up at her. There was that damn grin again. "Don't believe everythin' you read." His eyes were twinkling.

 

She threw her head and shoulders back, and challenged him. "How do I know you're not rubbish?"

 

"Beg your pardon?" Her question had taken him off guard.

 

"At sex? You want me to marry you, and you've never even kissed me. How do I know you're not rubbish at it?"

 

"Well, I'm just...not. Really. You saw me bookshelf... JOKING. That's me, joking again. I'm a joker. Rose," his voice choked. Gone was the grinning. He sank to his knees before her. "Oh, Rose. These last two days, you have to have known it, love, can't you see it--they've been the best a' me life. Ye were made for me, Rose. Bespoke for me. The universe, it's been nothin' but cruel. Then to an old, battered, ugly god, she gives the most gorgeous, feisty, intuitive, caring Goddess ever was."

 

Rose followed him now, dropping to her knees before him, face to face. "Go on," she softly prompted.

 

"Rose, do you want me? Do you love me back? Could you stand to stay with me, for the rest of your life?"

 

Rose took his face in her hands. "Course I love you, you git. 'N I told you, already. I'll stay with you. Forever."

 

"Good, then it’s settled, we’re gettin’ married!" The grin was back, as he leapt to his feet, pulling her with him.

 

Normally, Rose was not a cruel person. It was not in her nature to devise ways to hurt anyone, even if someone who knew her would have thought she might be better off if she could bring herself to do. But the Doctor today, well, he just might have pushed her over the edge a teensy-weensy bit. She could not help herself from sticking her tongue in her cheek and offering the following suggestions--

 

"Where's my phone? Let’s call Mum right away! She'll want to get started first thing tomorrow!" Rose bounced up and down on her toes, in mock glee. "She'll want a BIG wedding, of course, yeah? You don’t mind the color pink, do you? Big pink and yellow wedding, it's what she and I always dreamed of. Westminster, you think you can pull some strings and get is in there? I mean, with us knowin' the Prime Minister 'n all? Oh, and Jack, you can ask Jack to be Best Man! Just think of the hilarious speech he’ll give at our reception! It'll be the highlight a' your year, I reckon. Speaking of which, we’re going to need a lead on a good caterer."

 

The Doctor was turning pale.

 

Noticing his discomfort, Rose assured him, "Don't worry, we can keep it simple. Just a small seated dinner, lobster, of course, oh and caviar, but other than that, nothing fancy. And I can keep Mum down to oh, say, 1,200 guests on my side?"

 

She could not help it. The look on his face. She began to laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. And point.

 

"You--you--can't possibly--think I'm serious--" Tears streamed down her face and dripped to the floor. She felt the start of a cramp in her diaphragm. She tried to get control of herself, but the look on his face--she lost it for a second round.

 

"Very funny. Lotsa laughs," he said, but his eyes were smiling even if he was putting on being cross.

 

"Gotcha," she cried. "Now who really doesn't know who!"

 

"You had me goin' there," he admitted.

 

She wiped her tears. "Who you think you're marryin'? A crazy person? No, definitely NOT tellin' Mum a thing until the deed is good and done." She smiled at him. "Which, I sincerely hope, might happen on a beach somewhere?"

 

"Fancy some tea?" he asked. She assented, and they headed for the kitchen. "A beach? Thought we'd head for Paris, first."

 

"What's with you and tryin' to get me to smell different?" she asked. They entered the kitchen and began setting up a nice high tea, with all the fixings.

 

"Prefer you don't wear anythin', actually," he said.

 

"Hmm..." Rose poured their cups and joined him at the table. "Those Cypricians--"

 

"Cypriots," he corrected.

 

"--Cypriots, found their perfume stinky anyways."

 

The Doctor fetched up a jammy dodger and chewed it thoughtfully. "That was meant to be just the first stop on the tour. Next it was on to France. Then Antiputeodopolis on Smellax V, for the height of the effervescing bodywash craze."

 

Rose smelled her arm and shook her head. "They stuff they bathed me in, it's still all over me. Can’t believe I was almost a temple prostitute."

 

"Love, you were right, it's not a joke, and I am sorry. Truly, I apologise." He looked at her sincerely, and she noticed his lips were full, and slightly parted...

 

"Kiss me when you say that," she murmured.

 

And he did.

 

Twenty minutes later, she said, "Blimey. Not rubbish."

 

"Told you," he preened.

 

"Watch your ego, this table only seats four," she admonished him. "Look, if you want to ask me proper, and give me a chance to, you know, see just how rubbish you aren't, why don't you take me to a proper beach--no, a spa--oh, I know, a spa on a beach! With dinner all dressed up and couples massages in an outdoor cabana, saw that once, on an advert on the telly for Club Med, looks wonderful. And some drinks with umbrellas in the pool, with some beach volleyball with other couples we've met there..."

 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "This is startin' to sound as crowded as a weddin a la Jackie. Sure you wouldn't rather go to a nice uninhabited planet? One with a waterfall?"

 

"Who would rub my feet?" Rose asked.

 

The Doctor drew himself up. "What, you don't think I can handle it?"

 

"For ninety minutes? Without stopping?"

 

"Might could," he replied.

 

"Every day for five days in a row?"

 

"Okay, you win, spa it is. Rose, I know just the beach, too. Famous resort, best on Raxacoricofallapatorius. Lovely burgundy seas. Water won’t stain your skin--much--trust me, you’ll love it."

 

"Let's change into bathing costumes, then, come on, you promised, I heard you with my own ears." Rose stood and headed for the wardrobe room. "Speakin' a' ears," she fingered the heavy, ancient golden cherubs astride their doves that still adorned hers, "gimme a mo, to go return these."

 

"No, keep 'em, Aphrodite, keep 'em. Made for you. Everythin' here, it's all been made for you..."

  
He leaned down and gave her one more, slow, sweet kiss, and they made their way, together, down the corridor.


End file.
